Scott Parker 'relishing' challenge of keeping Burnley up ahead of Tottenham opener
Scott Parker is relishing the challenge of keeping Burnley in the Premier League against all the odds.
The Clarets make their top flight return this weekend away to Europa League winners Tottenham.
Having been relegated in both of their last two seasons in the Premier League, and given the recent records of newly-promoted sides, not many outsiders will be expecting Parker to avoid the drop.
Despite that, the Clarets boss is champing at the bit to prove people wrong that relegation isn’t simply a formality.
“As always, we understand the challenges,” he said ahead of this weekend’s opener.
“It's like anything, we can't sit here and say it any other way. The challenges for teams coming up in this division are big and over the last couple of years it's well documented that those challenges have been proven to be very demanding and have ultimately ended in relegation.
“But these are the challenges that we worked tirelessly for last year. I felt we built something in this group and we built something in this football club that fundamentally is a bedrock for us that can put us in a really strong position. We're excited about this challenge.
“We had challenges last year. I've had challenges many a time during my journey as a coach and this is a challenge that we're absolutely relishing this year.
“We're going to go and give our best version of ourselves while also taking the massive parts of last year, what gave us big success and hopefully bringing that into this year.”
Parker added: “We're in a good place. We've worked hard during pre-season.
“But then you never really know sitting in this position until the season starts and no doubt as the season gets going, you're always improving. But I think we're in a great place.
“Most of my pre-seasons are like this, trying to get us up to the best physical shape we can be in. The numbers suggest that, my eyes suggest that when I'm watching us train and where we currently are as a group, so we're in a good place in that sense.”
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