New boss Nicky Hayen plays down fears over US tour defeats

Nicky Hayen has vowed Burnley will be “totally different” in 14 days’ time after supporters shared some concern over their US pre-season tour defeats.

The Clarets went down 4-1 at the hands of Real Salt Lake in the early hours of Thursday morning in their third and final friendly of their tour.

It followed a 3-1 defeat to FC Cincinnati and a 1-1 draw against Columbus Crew, in which Burnley levelled late on.

Hayen provided an honest review of his side’s performance in the latter game, in which he took to the dugout for the first time having taken a watching brief for the previous two games.

But Burnley’s new boss is confident things will be put right on the training ground upon their return to Gawthorpe.

“Of course not happy with the result, not happy with the performance, but it's not like it was unexpected. It was a third game in five or six days,” he told the club’s social media channels.

“We didn't have a proper training session because of the travel, because of the time difference. But I'm not a manager who is going to hide himself behind excuses.

“We wanted to try something today and in some moments it went really well and sometimes it was not good enough and there are a lot of things to improve.

“I'm not worried at all. Like I said, I'm not happy, but from Monday we have every day that we can work really hard and within 14 days it will be totally different.”

Despite the positive outlook, Hayen will place big demands on his players - making it clear what he wants.

“I think we have a really good group mentality, [but] I really think that they can be demanding more for themselves,” he added.

“Also on the pitch, we attack together, we defend together. Today it was not the case. Some players were walking back. It's not something that we want, but this is something that we can improve.

“But off the pitch you see that this is a unity and actually we want to have the same energy on the pitch and this is what we're going to work for every single day. But yeah, everyone wants and that's already important.

“Of course, you still miss some players who are coming back in the upcoming days and weeks, so the most important thing is we don't have injuries. Everyone played these minutes and step by step we're improving.”