Gudmundsson ready to battle for place

The 26-year-old, signed from Charlton Athletic in the summer, has seen his season stunted with several spells on the sidelines having missed 15 games in total.

The winger sustained a hamstring injury in the 2-1 defeat against Manchester City at Turf Moor in November and suffered a similar setback in the goal-less FA Cup tie against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.

Gudmundsson then suffered medial knee ligament damage later on in the cup competition as he was withdrawn against Lincoln City.

After replacing George Boyd just after the hour, he said: “It’s really good to be back. I’ve been injured for a long time now so it’s definitely good to be here. It’s been a frustrating season but there’s not much that I can do about that now.

“It’s just about not getting injured again because no footballer wants to be injured.

“I’m disappointed with that but I’ve just got to look forward instead of looking back and hopefully get myself back in to the team. I thought I was doing quite well when I was in the team.

“That’s the aim, to get back in to the team. That was my first step today and I was delighted to be back out on the pitch. We’ve got a few more games to go so hopefully I’ll get a few more minutes.”

He added: “The first two were both hamstrings, which is something you can work on to make them stronger. But with the tackle in the FA Cup there’s not really much you can do about it because it’s just a bad tackle and he got me in the wrong spot.

“It’s frustrating but you can’t look back at it. I need to look forward and make some positive moves now. I want to play more minutes and I think I can help the team in many ways.”

The only disappointment on Gudmundsson’s return against Manchester United was the result as the away side stretched their unbeaten run to 23 games courtesy of goals from Anthony Martial and Wayne Rooney.

However, Gudmundsson was pleased with the character of Burnley’s second half performance.

“They are a great side and they showed that they’ve got plenty of quality, especially on the counter attack,” he said.

“A lot of teams in this league could’ve crumbled in that game when 2-0 down in the first half but we didn’t. We stuck at it and we gave them a good game in the second half. You just can’t give a team like Manchester United a two goal lead.

“No matter what we always keep going and we’ve shown that throughout the season. We did that again in the second half.”