Dyche can smell blood
SEAN DYCHE aims to put another dent in Manchester City’s faltering title defence tonight.
The Burnley boss believes the absences of Leroy Sane, Aymeric Laporte, Oleksandr Zinchenko and top scorer Sergio Aguero have knocked Pep Guardiola’s champions off their stride.
City have won only one of their last five games in all competitions and are 11 points behind leaders Liverpool in third.
Dyche said: “Even at that level, the real sharp edge of the market, teams that are trying to win the league and win in Europe, if they have two or three injuries those little tiny details that can affect the way a team operates, it becomes difficult for them.
“The margins are so tight. They still have top players coming in and filling those slots so I’m not crying on their behalf but when you are at the super elite level and the expectation is massive, if you lose key players, or certainly players that give them that extra bit of balance, it affects them and maybe that is part of it.
“Vulnerable is not a word that I’ve heard used many times about City.
“But I would suggest that with a couple of injuries it has maybe affected their unit.”
City drew 2-2 with Newcastle on Saturday but Dyche claims he is not reading too much into the result.
“When you look at the stats City had 27 efforts at goal,” added the Clarets chief.
“You can’t be a million miles away if you’re having 27 efforts on goal.
“They missed a couple of great chances and Newcastle, to be fair to them, stayed in there and got something at the end.”