Sean Dyche has always had faith his frontmen would rediscover their scoring touch as Burnley twice came from a goal down to beat Aston Villa 3-2 for their third successive victory. The Clarets went into the fixture as the Premier League’s joint-lowest scorers but there were signs they had turned a corner as Ashley Barnes won and then converted a penalty to give the Clarets a surprise victory at Liverpool last week.
Sean Dyche said: “I’ve always believed the centre forwards would score goals. I thought Woody was excellent in the second half and his goal was fantastic, Jay Rod got a couple at the weekend, Barnesy scored last Thursday. If we can do the diligent things often enough, these guys who have done a good job for us statistically over the years will score again, and I’m pleased to see they are scoring again. We’re beginning to find that balance again which we’ve found many times but we have to continue to work hard at it.”
Burnley fell behind to Ollie Watkins’ deft finish inside the first quarter of an hour and was under the cosh for much of the first half, with Ross Barkley hitting the bar and Nick Pope called upon to make several fine saves. Asked if there was a better goalkeeper in the top-flight than the England number two,
Sean Dyche said: “I’m going to say no because I’m his manager and I place great value in him.He continues to improve in my opinion. He’s in very good form, that’s for sure.”
Dyche revealed Josh Brownhill was withdrawn at half-time after a blow to the foot
Sean Dyche said “The good thing about working with a group of people for a long time is you begin to trust more and more what they’re about. I had total trust at half-time to just remind them of some of the basics, remind them of the way we work, remind them of the details of the performance and in the second half it paid us back.”
