Clarets not safe yet '“ Dyche

The Clarets claimed a 10th home win of the season against Stoke City on Tuesday night to reach 35 points, with seven games remaining.

That saw Burnley end a run of seven league games without a win, as they climbed to 14th in the table, two points behind Southampton in ninth.

But, ahead of tomorrow’s trip to struggling Middlesbrough, Dyche knows there is still work to be done: “The main thing from my point of view as a manager, is you want to keep moving forward, developing the side and the club.

“That’s on show, because we’ve got a record number of points, albeit only three seasons in the Premier League, but we have seven games to go, so that has to show that the team has improved, because we know how tough the Premier League is.

“Now it’s about taking on the rest of the challenge, because you get no gimmies in the Premier League.

“We’ve got good points on the board, we’re in good shape, but we’ve got to keep taking on the next challenge.”

Asked whether his side are nearly there in terms of securing safety, he admitted: “No, we’ve got to keep challenging ourselves, every game that comes – we made a deal with the players, like we do every year, it’s a one game at a time mentality.

“We had to work very hard for the win (against Stoke), and we’ll have to do that again in the coming weeks.

“We are in good shape with seven to go, both in the way the team are performing, and the points on the board, but the next one at Middlesbrough is a big one, and we just keep taking the challenges as they come.”

Dyche also isn’t getting ahead of himself, with the potential to not only stay up, but finish in the top half: “You’re kidding me! Next game, Boro away.

“We’re not bothered with all of that, it’s true what I say, we don’t get ideas above ourselves, we have to work for every single inch of what we get, and we’re going to have to continue to do that.

“What we have done is given ourselves a good platform, we were on one, it’s just your job is to make a story about a tough run.

“The margins have been tight, we got on the right side of them (on Tuesday) and we have to continue doing that.”