Nicky Hayen explains why Kyle Walker was dropped for Burnley

Nicky Hayen insists his decision to drop Kyle Walker for Burnley’s midweek game was not performance related.

The defender was left out of Burnley’s starting XI for Wednesday night’s 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough, with the returning Oliver Sonne and Connor Roberts picked ahead of him.

It comes after Walker, now 36, delivered a poor performance during Burnley’s 4-1 horror show at Norwich City at the weekend.

But Hayen insists his decision to leave Walker on the bench against Boro, where he remained unused, but a result of Burnley’s busy schedule.

“We have a lot of games,” he said. “We play on Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday, Tuesday.

“Kyle has experience, but also has his age and playing two games, and you can ask the players, two games, 90 minutes in a row, it asks a lot from a body.

“It was just today the best choice to put for someone else.”

During the game, meanwhile, Hayen was left with no choice but to hook Hannibal off at half time.

The midfielder picked up a booking after already escaping punishment for a couple of early incidents, and continued to risk a second yellow with a number of needless challenges.

Hayen did, however, make reference to Hannibal’s lack of midfield discipline, claiming it was harming the rest of the team.

“Yeah, correct,” Hayen replied, when asked if his withdrawal was a result of the yellow card.

“Okay, you know, we want to play in a certain structure and you saw we do actually well the first 10 minutes.

“But then when we concede a goal, there are players who want to try and help the team, but it's not always in the benefit of the team, sometimes you harm even more.

“Even if you have positive intentions, and that's what we said, we need to be more disciplined, everyone.

“Then you see in the second half it becomes better and that's a lesson for everyone. But you see they're on board, they try to execute the things that we ask, second half with a lot more intensity and energy.

“Also with structure and discipline and this will be all the ingredients to be successful.”

The major positive from Wednesday night’s game was the continued impact of Chelsea loanee Dastan Satpayev, who was once again Burnley’s standout performer by far.

He tired late on though and was forced off during the final 10 minutes, while seen clutching his hamstring as he walked back to the dugout.

“We'll have a check tomorrow [Thursday],” Hayen said afterwards. “So I hope it's more like a cramp. He has quite strong muscles and fibres, but we'll have a look tomorrow.

“But again, last week he was really good, today he was really good, and I'm really happy for him that an 18-year-old brings a lot of energy and a lot of intensity. But he's also an example for other players and that's why we like him.

“But also you saw some action from Largie [Ramazani], where there's creativity, speed, and now we bring in Igor [Julio] and Reo [Hatate] with a lot of experience, so these two worlds go hand-in-hand.

“The senior players know what it is to win games, to have the mentality, even in difficult times.

“Like we're struggling a little bit at the moment and the young guys bring the energy and the intensity, and together it has to be successful.”