Mike Jackson discusses Burnley's 'strange' situation ahead of Aston Villa
Mike Jackson is just focusing on controlling the controllables in the midst of his “strange” second caretaker spell.
Burnley’s first-team coach takes charge of his second game on Sunday when Aston Villa come to Turf Moor.
With the Clarets already relegated, there’s nothing really on the line for Jackson’s side, who have another two games to play beyond this weekend’s encounter.
It’s an entirely different scenario to four years ago, when Jackson was placed in caretaker charge after Sean Dyche’s sacking.
Despite overseeing an initial upturn in form, Jackson was unable to keep the Clarets in the Premier League.
“Obviously it’s a different situation,” he acknowledged.
“From my point of view, I always try and, and I said this to the lads, I always try and speak with honesty, some truth and some care as well and understanding. But obviously a way of then moving forward from that.
“Quickly in this world that we're in, in football, you quickly have to just reset. You have to try and park your own things to the side and then you just focus on what's really important now and that's all I've tried to do.
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“I've just tried to think: ‘right, what can I influence now? What's going to be important now? How can I help the players? How can I help reconnect things and get things going a little bit after what's happened?’ and that's my full focus.
“I can't go looking at everything, there's only so many things I can affect and I've just tried to really focus on them with the staff as well.”
At this stage of the season, managers and head coaches will inevitably be asked about summer plans, contracts and recruitment.
But as Jackson admits himself, none of that is part of his remit and it’s completely out of his control.
“Like I said, I'll always be honest when people ask questions. But there's only so much I can say,” he added.
“It's been one week. There's only so much…and people will be having their opinions on everything. What's going to happen? What went wrong? But that will always be there. I can't help with that.
“All I can do is help this group of players and help the club just at this time stay calm, stay steady and give it a platform to try and start building again.”
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