The main thing is to go and give another performance
Burnley travel to the Madejski Stadium tomorrow to face a Reading side who are now back under the management of Brian McDermott. Sacked in March 2013 having steered them to the Premier League in the previous season, he’s back at the helm after a spell in charge at Leeds followed by a role with Arsenal.
Ahead of tomorrow’s game, he’s said that it is no surprise to him to see Burnley up there in the promotion chase. “They’ve got the ingredients there,” he said.
“They’ve got players who know the league, they’ve got a manager that knows his way around the league and get out of it, he’s a fabulous manager. I’ve got a lot of time for Sean, the club and the way they are doing things there.
“They will be massive favourites to get promotion this year, in my opinion. They’ve got a goalscorer there, and they’ve got lads that will run forward, but they’ll run back as quickly as they run forward. They work really hard as a team together.
“It looks like they have kept calm as a club. Sean has built another team again which is capable of competing at the top end. After Christmas, which is where we are now, that’s where they’re at, and that’s where they’ll be until the end of the season, I’m sure.”
Speaking about his return, he added: “I’ve had twelve games in eight weeks. It has been game after game, and we’ve had a transfer window involved. All sorts of stuff has been going on which has needed taking care of as far as the football is concerned.
“Now you feel we can really start and get going and we’ve got a bit more time to work with the players to get the shape that we want and the style of play that we want, and get the results that we want.”
Burnley have just played three consecutive league games against teams in the top six, beating both Derby and Hull at home either side of a draw at Sheffield Wednesday.
But each game is taken very much on its merits with Sean Dyche saying: “We’ve made it clear about the way we go about our business.
“We focus on every game as an individual game, therefore it is important no matter who you are playing, home or away, we really have good detail in how we work and how we prepare the team because every one’s a challenge, particularly in the Championship we’ve seen that.
“You get a big game, everyone’s building up; get that one out of the way, Guess what? Another one comes around quickly so we make sure we are mentally and physically ready for each challenge and we will be.”
It’s a different challenge and he said of Reading since McDermott returned: “They’ve had an up and down run and that can sometimes happen. There was a strange situation earlier in the season where everyone was not sure how the change came about with the manager going out, and then Brian’s come in.
“He’ll be trying to put his own flavour on the team, his own spin on the team and his own way of working and there’s been signs of that performance wise. They’ve maybe not had as many results as they’d like but I think they’ve been performing reasonably well so from what we’ve seen and what we know it’s another challenge for us.
“The main incentive is to win another game. We’re in good form at the minute, we’re performing well as well as getting the results which is the blend you want so the main thing is to go and give another performance.”
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