We can’t take for granted we will keep doing what we’re doing
Burnley are off to West Brom tonight and that means a date with their manager Tony Pulis who had not long been in the job the last time the two teams met in February 2015.
Pulis is certainly one of the more experienced managers in English football and just two months ago was inducted into the League Managers Association Hall of Fame having reached 1,000 games which have come with Bournemouth, Gillingham, Bristol City, Portsmouth, Stoke, Plymouth, Stoke again and Crystal Palace before West Brom.
He takes his team into tonight’s game having won 2-1 at Champions Leicester last time out. Looking at that game he said: “I think there’s been spells in games this year where we’ve played really well and then dropped off, and I think at Leicester, for 90 minutes, we kept a really good tempo about the way we played. That’s what we’ve got to try to and do.
“It will be a tough game on Monday night, we know that, but every game in the Premier League is a tough game. I just want the players to play with spirit and togetherness, and there was that in bundles against Leicester. I think in the Leicester game we most probably had a little bit more confidence about us from the start and that makes a big different with the players.”
He added: “We’re coming into a period when most games will be evening games now winter is drawing in, the floodlights will be coming on at half time in all the Saturday afternoon games.
“What we’ve got to do is put in a performance like we did against Leicester. If we can repeat that performance and play as we as the players can play, then it should be a good game.”
Burnley go into the game having won 14 points so far with Sean Dyche saying: “I think it’s a good start. I think it’s a solid start, at least, and with the last performance and the last win, it turns into a good start overall.
“The reality is it’s a season’s work, so we’re quite clear minded about not getting too high with the highs and too low with the lows here. We know it’s a decent start, at least, and it gives us a real good base to build from, but it’s a so far story, it’s not a ‘oh well, that’s it’, because we know the challenges that are coming our way.”
Dyche will be hoping for much better than our last visit to West Brom when we were on the wrong end of a 4-0 scoreline.
“We look forward to those challenges and the reality of the Premier League is it’s a really tough division,” he added. “We know that. We have experienced that before, which is the good side to looking back two years. We have been through that before so we know we have to continue to build and move forward with the team.
“We can’t take for granted we will keep doing what we’re doing. It’s not like that in the Premier League. We’ve got to continually add to what we’re doing and to try wring every last drop out of the players and be in a situation where we are, on an ongoing basis, picking up good results.”
Follow UpTheClarets:Share this page :