Burnley FC manager Brian Laws: ‘Clarets will bounce back’

BURNLEY boss Brian Laws knows he needs results, and quickly.

But while some media sources are suggesting he has two games to save his job, he is merely looking for the points to drag his side back into the top six.

The Clarets slipped down to 12th place on Saturday, after their game at Cardiff City was postponed early in the afternoon on Friday.

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Burnley are now nine points from the second automatic place with two games in hand on Leeds, and five from sixth-place Coventry, who, again, have played two games more.

But the two games in hand are at Portsmouth and Cardiff – with the Clarets without an away league win in nine games this season, ahead of the Boxing Day trip to Barnsley.

National newspaper reports suggest Laws needs a minimum of four points from the game at Oakwell and the home clash with former club Scunthorpe United a week today, although I understand the club has issued no such ultimatum.

Laws, however, knows it is time to bounce back into contention, with the games, weather permitting, coming thick and fast. He said: “Looking at the next few games in particular, over the Christmas period, we’ve got to make sure we do everything right and we stay right in the thick of things.

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“After the New Year, that’s when it really pans out, so it’s important we’re right in there.

“We know the games that are coming are coming very, very quickly and we’ve got a great opportunity to get back in to things.

“We’ll concentrate on this little chunk of games, then hopefully at the end of it we’re right back where we should be.

“It’s important we keep sight of everybody and make sure that if we do have a disappointment we bounce back with a positive.”

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He feels the sides under the microscope at the top will come under increasing pressure to succeed, and Burnley might be able to sneak into the promotion race on the blindside: “It’s a very good position to be in because you’re under the radar with nobody pointing the finger at you.

“The pressure starts to mount on clubs when they’re in there; some take it really well and some fall by the wayside.

“I think getting in to the January period will also tell us where we are, and tell us whether we need to strengthen and up the tempo and freshen things up.

“That’s probably something we’ll look to try to do in January.

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“I think it’s important anyway that we have a bit of freshness about us, that’s the objective when we come to this January period, that we get out there and bring some good players in to the club that will kick us on again.”

While the away wins column has to climb up, Laws also knows his team need to put a run together, with their best sequence in the league standing at six, in September and October.

Burnley have not won back-to-back league games since the unlikely six-point haul from the first two home games in the Premier League last August against Manchester United and Everton, and Laws wants to add that consistency.

The side haven’t been consistent even inside stand-alone games, showing a schizophrenic nature, most notably while three times letting two-goal leads slip against Sheffield United, Norwich City and Leeds United.

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Laws said: “The frustrating one is that we’re not (being consistent).

“There’s been odd games where we’ve gone through the whole game and been outstanding, and others we’ve had really strong pockets.

“But we understand that the opposition are going to have a period, and it’s how we defend in that period which is the key to our success.

“We’ve earned the right to play, we’ve created the opportunities to win games, it’s just shutting it out now when they’re on top, and we’ve lost our way a little bit on that.

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“That was the strongest point of our game earlier on in the season; we were very resilient and very hard to beat. “There’s just a few cracks there, we need to re-apply ourselves a bit and work harder as a team when we’re defending.”