Nicky Hayen attempts to explain Burnley’s poor start to the season

Nicky Hayen has attributed Burnley’s horror start to a lack of time with his players on the training pitch.

The Belgian believes his appointment, a week after pre-season had already begun, meant he was already playing catch up ahead of the new campaign.

The under-fire Clarets boss also believes the big turnover of players this summer, as well as the Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday nature of the first few weeks of the season, has contributed to Burnley sitting bottom of the Championship table without a win to their name.

When asked if he’s able to pinpoint why Burnley have started so poorly, Hayen said: “It’s not a case of having to figure it out.

“First of all, when we did the pre-season it was with a lot of other players, so a lot of new players came in.

“But there were players who didn't play for two years, for 15 months, didn't have a pre-season. Even Jamie [Vardy] is now in one week of a training session, so this is also part of the reality.

“But the season started on August 16 and we didn't have that time to work a lot and it would be easier when you had week by week by week game. Now we had every week already in midweek, so you didn't have the proper time to practice with these guys.

“We worked on principles with one group in the States and then you have a total new backline almost and you have to work again on the principles.

“But when you have game after game after game, you just can't do it the day before the game, and then you have a recovery, so it was a really hard window.

“Does this mean that we couldn't win games? Of course you could win games. In the Bristol City game, you could win even against Middlesbrough in the second half, you felt that we were the better team there, although we could always have lost that game also.

“Against Derby, we felt like we could win this game and this is what we needed, so we could have four or five points more, but the reality is that it isn't.

“I didn't lie for the last few weeks that we needed this international break to get everyone fit, to know the principles, to work on the basics, to become stronger, but unfortunately I hope that it was with more points.”