SEAN Dyche has promised Burnley fans that the Clarets won’t die wondering as they approach the final 10 Premier League games of the season.
Dyche’s side have dropped to 19th after a run of just two points from the last seven games, and they are now three points adrift of safety.
They have given themselves a mountain to climb, with their next four games against champions Manchester City and Champions League qualification candidates Southampton, Tottenham and Arsenal.
But Dyche said his side will go on the attack in every game, starting with the visit of Manuel Pellegrini’s expensively assembled squad today, as they look to prove the doubters wrong and prolong their stay in the top flight.
“The one thing we have to have is a threat,” said the Burnley boss.
“My idea of being in the Premier League was not to get to the end come what may and then go ‘oh we didn’t really have a go’. My idea was to have a go.
“Not in a stupid way. We have to be organised and still have a sound base to work from but to attack and have a chance of winning every single game.”
Early in the season Burnley failed to score for a club record 655 minutes of football before Michael Kightly netted at Leicester City, but since then they have rarely failed to find the back of the net.
Since ending their 11 game league and cup winless streak at the start of the season, when they failed to score in seven games, the Clarets have scored in 15 of their last 20 fixtures, failing to score away at QPR, home to Liverpool, away at Sunderland at home to Swansea and away to Liverpool.
Twenty-three goals have come in those games, and Dyche’s dedication to playing two strikers up front has been rewarded.
Since the 3-0 defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium, when the Clarets did look to play more defensively, Danny Ings and Ashley Barnes have started every Premier League game together in attack, scoring 13 goals between them along the way.
And Dyche said the way they struggled to have an impact on the game going forward at Arsenal and led him to stick with the attacking approach.
“Once we went kind of sub-servient on the game plan at Arsenal and it didn’t suit us at all,” he said.
“Every other game, more or less with the odd hiccup here and there, we have been in it. That was my reasoning.”
Today Burnley will face another side who tend to play two up front, in Manchester City, with either Wilfried Bony or Edin Dzeko likely to partner Sergio Aguero, and Dyche is surprised more teams don’t play that way in the Premier League.
“Usually your front players are at the more talented end of your group,” he said. “If you have got two good players up front then you would use them, I think.
“I’m surprised there aren’t more teams utilising two up front.
“I personally think you need a threat going forwards. The best form of defending is attacking.
“I believed in it last year, I believe in it this year.”
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