We’ve got to take care of business ourselves
Burnley travel to Tottenham tomorrow with the Clarets coming up against Mauricio Pochettino who we have still to get the better of be it at Southampton or Spurs.
The Argentine has been switching formations recently and was asked whether it depended on the game which way he decides to go. He said: “It’s about how we feel sometimes with the team, the players, the momentum. There are many reasons when we take a decision to change.
“The good thing is that during the season, sometimes we changed in different games but now it’s a natural habit and the players are not affected by that. They are very pleased to play in different situations and that is very important, to have different alternatives to play and to come with all the demands of the game.”
Those formation changes saw them play with three at the back in the win against Hull and that led to a match winning performance from Christian Eriksen. Did the formation help him? That was put to the manager whose thoughts were: “Always we try to find a way to help all the team, like on the training ground when we work very hard. It’s because we try to provide them with the better tools to help to improve in their game.
“I don’t want to say that it was the formation that helped him. He was the protagonist in the action, he was aggressive with the ball and that is a good thing to keep now and in the future for the team, not only for him.”
He gave no hints as to what the formation will be tomorrow but admitted it would not be an easy game. “Difficult, because it’s a team that has a very clear idea of how they play,” he said about Burnley.
“They are strong physically and mentally. It’s a very difficult team to play, we can see that in different games. In their last game against West Ham it was difficult for West Ham and in the end a penalty decided the game, but you know, the Premier League is always tough.
“The most important thing is to try to arrive fresh with ideas clear of how we need to play and what we need to do, they try to give our best.”
Sean Dyche, hardly surprisingly, was asked about our away record and what he might do to try and improve it. “We’ll approach the Spurs game in the same way and that’s to give a performance,” he said. “We did that in the second half at West Ham but not the first half and that’s something we’ve got to change.
“It has been a tough balance to find, but it’s our job to find that balance and look to take our good performances away. It is tough away from home in the Premier League though. People will forget that we won early on in the last Premier League season at Stoke, where we hung on with our fingers, then we didn’t win again until later on in the season.
“It’s the season that counts and if we got three wins away from home this season we’d still be in great shape, so we have to be realistic about the challenge, but look at what we are doing in order to take that challenge on.
“It’s though tough, especially when you go to clubs like Tottenham, where Mauricio and his players have done a brilliant job. They are a force to be reckoned with this season, without a shadow of a doubt, I think.”
He added: “We’ve got to take care of business ourselves and take responsibility for our performances and that’s what we’ll do. It’s a tough one for us because in the grand scheme of things most people who be pleasantly surprised by where we are in the league at the moment.
“I think we have exceeded everyone’s else’s expectations, but not so much our fans and certainly not myself, those of my staff and my team. I think from the outside looking in it’s well documented that nobody fancied us to have a chance of being in this division, then to continue there.
“Overall, I think we are giving a good account of ourselves, and the stats suggest the away results will come towards you, but we have to make them come towards us because it’s improbable that you won’t win away. You usually find a way of winning at some point but we have to make sure, rather than just wait for that to occur.”
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