Clarets winger ‘staying up’ bigger than promotion

The former Stoke and Wolves wide an has recently returned to the side after Dean Marney suffered a cruciate knee ligament injury, and has taken his chance with two good performances at Manchester United and Chelsea.

Burnley are in the bottom three on goal difference, but Kightly feels the squad - having spent the least for a top-flight club since Blackpool in 2010 - can pull off what many felt was the impossible: “A little bit of money helps, but everyone said we were dead and buried and we have a good chance of staying in this division without spending much.

“It would be a bigger achievement than getting promoted, it’s a hard, hard division, we’ve won four games all season and feel we’ve played fairly well in most games other than West Brom away.

“We feel we’ve competed in every game and only got four wins, so that tells you how strong the league is, but there’s a long way to go yet.”

The Clarets host Swansea today, having narrowly lost 1-0 at the Liberty Stadium in their first away game of the season.

Kightly admits that game showed Burnley could be competitive at this level: “I think we learned we could compete in this division, on the day we were very good and unlucky not to get anything, from that day we believed we were Premier League players.

“We took our time getting our first win, but we’ve built on that since and feel we’re growing, we just need to turn performances into wins.

“The mood is really good, we performed really well at Old Trafford the week before and we built on that at Chelsea so hopefully we can build on that again.

“Swansea are a great side, we know it’s going to be a tough game, but going to those places and getting results gives us confidence to compete against anyone.

“There’s not too many games to go so every game is even more vital now.”