Clarets inspired by heart-to-heart with boss Dyche

Burnley boss Sean Dyche confirmed that he'd held heart-to-heart talks with his players to help lift the fog ahead of the club's record Premier League win.
Burnley boss Sean DycheBurnley boss Sean Dyche
Burnley boss Sean Dyche

The squad had meetings in 2015, on the back of a Boxing Day defeat to Hull City, and went 23 games unbeaten to secure the Championship title.

Dyche hosted a similar conference last year amid an 11 -game winless stretch in the top flight, ultimately inspiring a run of five successive triumphs that contributed to a seventh place finish.

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Defeat to Wolves at Molineux last week had seen the Clarets tumble to the bottom of the standings in the top flight, on the back of a worst start to a season at this level in 91 years, until a 4-0 win against Eddie Howe's AFC Bournemouth changed the outlook.

Burnley boss Sean DycheBurnley boss Sean Dyche
Burnley boss Sean Dyche

"We had a good chat in the week, we reminded ourselves what we’re about, how far we’ve come, I reminded them how proud I am to work with the group on a continuing basis and told them there’s more to come," he said.

"But we have to earn the right, we have to fight for it. We’ve been written off many times, then it’s about shoulders back and taking on the challenge, and we did that.

"Mentally it was more like it, physically definitely, the control of certain parts of the game, particularly first half, and then the resilient nature of the sides I’ve worked with.

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"I was pleased for many different reasons, but it’s just a start. It’s where we want to be, winning games.

"The players have had a lot on this season, they’ve done well to see through that and this week to see through the noise."

Burnley had endured a schedule that had been completely alien to the majority of the squad, the Europa League programme had seemingly pulled the players out of kilter, but Dyche feels they can finally settle in to a rhythm again.

"Some of the players mentioned it when we had a chat, the strangeness of Thursday-Sunday, now it looks more like the Premier League, like they’re used to," Dyche said.

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"All of these things are different, they take a lot to compute at times and I think they’ve done it very well today.

"When you haven’t got your first win there’s a nervousness, you can feel it at times, the players a little bit and the fans a little bit, I must say the fans were terrific.

"That goes away when you win a game. It kills all the noise, now it’s where are we going to go from here?"

Dyche accepts that the Clarets were a shadow of themselves in recent weeks, the performances had been reflected by their body language, but they displayed more familiar traits against the Cherries.

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After rediscovering some of their swagger, Dyche said: "We were nowhere near our best. The irony is statistically, on the physicals, we were higher than Wolves, but the sharpness, the body language and the intent to our play was lacking.

"Today it was completely different, the body language, the drive, the forcefulness of the side.

"Vydra’s finish, on it like a shot, Barnesy’s finish, drives onto it, that anticipation of the game often goes when you’re nervous and edgy. When you’re feeling more confident it comes back in and there was more of it today."