It just looked and felt more like a Burnley performance

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It was a first point of the season tonight as the Clarets came back from West Bromwich Albion having drawn 0-0 and it was a game that both managers were able to take positives from.

Baggies’ boss Slaven Bilić, saw his side move out of the bottom three with the result and afterwards he said: “I am positive. Make no mistake. We wanted to win the game and line up showed that. We didn’t win the game, but everything else was there. There was work ethic and effort. They gave everything.

Embed from Getty Images“We created a number of chances and we kept our shape for the whole game. We had plenty of possession. We got a clean sheet and the point of course. We have to, as a team, build on this. We did enough to score minimum one goal. They also had a couple of good chances but Sam made a couple of great saves.

“Let’s be positive. Let’s build on this. Let’s build on our good performance. Let’s build on our clean sheet. Let’s build on the individual performances. It was the first game in the Premier League for Conor Gallagher. It was the first game for our new striker Karlan Grant in three or four months. It was the first game after a while for Branislav Ivanović.

“These are all the things that are making me positive now. We are definitely going to get more confidence from a performance like this tonight.”

After  the disappointment of Newcastle 16 days ago, Sean Dyche viewed this as Burnley getting back to looking like Burnley. “The pleasing thing for me is that I spoke last week about getting back to being us and our performance levels. We were quite a long way back towards that tonight,” he said.

Embed from Getty Images“Psychologically, it’s good to get your first point on the board. That, and a clean sheet too, a deserved one away from home, meant there were more signs of what we are about.

“There is not a defining moment when you change things around and I don’t think we’ve been a million miles off, but we’ve had three out of four Premier League games away from home and we’ve had injuries that have stretched us.

“Tonight you could see we are getting players back and we are coming back to the squad we know. We still have to build on it, don’t get me wrong, but tonight it just looked and felt better and more like a Burnley performance, but they’re only human, remember, and they are seeing their mates come back and getting fitter, so the in-house competition grows.”

Dyche added: “In both boxes we’ve not been as clean, if you like. We had to do the right things defensively and in attack we made good chances tonight. We didn’t take them, but I don’t knock my strikers when they are in there to score. It’s when they are not in there to score that I worry, but they were alive in the box and we created enough tonight to win the game.

“It’s been a challenging time, with injuries and things going on, both on and off the pitch, but we know our way around the Premier League now and we’ll take the point.”

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