Eddie Howe on Burnley FC’s ‘role reversal’ at Turf Moor

Burnley have won six games on their travels so far this season – twice as many as in front of their own supporters.

It is a complete role reversal from when Howe arrived back in January.

It took until Boxing Day for the Clarets to register their first away win – at Barnsley, in what proved Brian Laws’ last away game in charge.

Howe has since presided over 11 wins on the road in the calendar year – the first time that has happened since 2000, and a statistic only bettered in 1960!

Conversely, however, the side have won just three of 13 at what was Fortress Turf Moor.

He said: “It’s strange how things pan out, everyone was going on about away wins when we came in, and we’ve picked up 11 this year.

“Our home form last season was very good for the majority of the time, but we’ve struggled at home so far this season.

“We now need to transfer our away record into our home form, and I see no reason why we can’t be dominant at the Turf, and turn it into a place where people don’t want to come.

“There are things we have to tweak here, we are aware of what we need to do, and hopefully we can start that against Doncaster on Boxing Day.

“Hopefully, we will turn in an improved performance from last time out here agsinst Portsmouth.

“We’ve analysed what we need to do, and hopefully we’ll put it into practice.”

Howe disagrees with the notion that his side are better suited to playing away from home: “It’s been difficult for us at home, a lot of teams have come here to sit in, play one up and be solid and hard to beat.

“It’s up to us to take the game to them, and when you have more time on the ball, sometimes it gives you more problems.

“You have to be more patient and have more belief in your build up.”

Burnley certainly had to patient against nine-man Brighton on Saturday as they ground out a 1-0 win, and he added: “To that extent, Saturday was a really good exercise - it’s something we work on in training. We were excellent in phases, worked the ball from side to side and were patient, but in and around the box we couldn’t break them down - they defended very well.

“We lacked a bit of quality to open them up, but we kept our heads and were disciplined.

“We made over 500 passes - our most of the seaspon, which you’d expect against nine men, and we put in something like 48 crosses and had 14 corners. It was just finishing them off.”