It is not very often you hear the words arrogance and Burnley used in the same sentence but manager Sean Dyche has encouraged his side to "play with more freedom" when they take on West Ham United this weekend.
"Now it's about taking on the league"
Dyche admitted that his side had an initial target of beating their points tally from last season, which they have equalled with another 27 still up for grabs. “The main goal was being better than last year. Now it’s about taking on the league in order to get as many points as possible and to show ourselves that we are continually moving forward."
With his side comfortably seventh, Dyche believes his players now have the right to be confident about their football. He added, “they are free to go on and hopefully play well, get the shoulders back slightly and have that little bit more of a touch of mild arrogance just to take on each challenge as it comes."
"A good job done so far"
Dyche suggested, “to get to 40 points at this stage of the season is very pleasing" and he has now laid down a new challenge for the players.
The former defender explained, “it brings everyone that nice feeling of a good job done so far and the question of how far can we go from here?"
A win on Saturday would move the Clarets to within two points of a Europe League qualification position. Dyche failed to comment on such a prospect but wants his team to keep pushing on. He posed the questions, “can we keep striving, can we keep moving forwards and can we get more and more points on the board?”
However, the Burnley manager does not expect an easy task on Saturday. “They are in a tough little spell after David Moyes was doing well, when he first went in, calming everything down. However, it's certainly not an easy task, we know that. They’re fighting for points and we’re now fighting for points for different reasons."