Burnley are staying grounded while flying high – Dyche

BURNLEY cannot get carried away by the form that has propelled them up the Premier League table and must focus on their primary target of finishing higher than last season, manager Sean Dyche said yesterday.

The Lancashire side have achieved above expectations to sit in sixth place after nine wins, four draws and four defeats and are level on 31 points with Liverpool and Tottenham.

“The first target is to try and achieve something better than we did last season, both in the team developing and of course results because that’s the main judgement.

“I think we are finding a good mixture of both, the players are reality bound here. We know it’s an ongoing challenge and we know it will be but it’s to be enjoyed without a shadow of a doubt.”

Despite being on course to improve on last season’s 16th-placed finish, Dyche said Burnley were not in a position to be “swaggering into places”.

“We are realistic. The fans are realistic. Football can be a fragile business. Five years ago we were having to sell players,” Dyche said ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Brighton and Hove Albion.

Defenders Ben Mee and Matt Lowton could both return to the squad at Brighton after recovering from knee injuries while Stephen Ward will be assessed today.

Meanwhile, Brighton manager Chris Hughton said his team faces “two big games” against Burnley and Watford and backed his team to get their season back on track.

After a positive start to the season, Brighton have lost four of their last five games to sit in 13th with 17 points.

“We are a newly promoted team. We went through a good period but we are now among a group of teams that are not in good form. We aren’t happy with it and are very conscious of the facts. The next two games are very big.

“We need any win badly. These are the challenges that will face us all season. Whenever you lose, it puts more pressure on the next game. This is the challenge and we are a team that rises to those.”

Welsh soccer’s governing body will not take action against chief executive Jonathan Ford for comments that ruled out an English candidate to replace Chris Coleman as manager of the national team.

The Football Association of Wales said it had reviewed the situation and accepted Ford’s apology after he clarified the comments made in an interview earlier this month.

They said in a statement that Ford’s comments were “taken out of context” and “not in the manner in which they were intended.”

Ford had said in the interview that the FAW favoured Welsh people because “arguably the passion is there” before going on to add that the new coach would be “Welsh most definitely, foreign possibly, but definitely not English.”