Trippier aiming to get back on track in the cup

DEFENDER Kieran Trippier is confident Burnley’s back-to-back defeats are a blip, and the side can still enjoy a successful season.

The Clarets host League 2 Plymouth Argyle tonight in the second round of the Capital One Cup, hoping to shake off Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Huddersfield Town, which followed a last-gasp setback at Middlesbrough in midweek.

Those losses have burst the bubble created by the opening day success against Bolton Wanderers, but Trippier firmly believes the team are heading in the right direction: “I think we’ll do well.

“We’re keeping the faith!

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“We’ve had three games in a week, after starting off brilliantly against Bolton.

“I thought we did the same thing at Middlesbrough – we came out and did well and bounced back from going behind, but couldn’t get the three points.

“We started brightly on Saturday, but so did Huddersfield, and that early goal was a blow.

“I thought we recovered after that and Charlie (Austin) had a chance almost straight away, but we’ve got to put the ball in the back of the net with those opportunities.”

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Burnley went behind to a Joel Lynch header on six minutes which was deemed to have crossed the line, despite the best efforts of Joseph Mills, and right on half-time, David Edgar’s shot from the edge of the box went in off Austin, who was off-side.

Trippier had no complaints about the initial decision, however: “I was on the line and it was a goal,” he said.

“I’m not going to stand here and say it wasn’t because it was.

“We’ve got to respond from that, and I thought we did for a good 10 minutes, but it was a poor result.”

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And he couldn’t argue with the disallowed goal either: “Charlie put it in the back of the net and it was just unlucky that he was off-side.”

Town grabbed a second after the break through the prolific Jordan Rhodes, and Trippier admits Burnley have to be more miserly: “We gave away cheap goals on Saturday.

“We switched off a little bit,” he said.

“Against Middlesbrough I thought we got a lot of positives.

“Two wonder strikes obviously cost us the game but I thought the spirit of the boys was brilliant.

“But on Saturday I just thought we started sloppy.

“They were pressing us and pressing us with the home crowd getting behind them, and they managed to score early on.

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“We dug in and I thought we had a good spell towards the end of the first half, but they came out again and we conceded another cheap goal.

“Rhodes had too much time in the box and if you give him an opportunity he’ll put it in the back of the net.”

The Championship is already as unpredictable as ever, and Trippier added: “Anybody can beat anybody because there are so many good teams in this league.

“There are so many games – there’s always one around the corner and you’ve got to be prepared.”

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Next up are Plymouth, and while the Clarets will be highly fancied to progress, Trippier is keen to take some momentum into Saturday’s league game at home to Brighton: “We want to be in that next round and set us up for trying to get another three points at home, which we need.

“We don’t want to go into the international break on a negative, we want to go in on a positive.

“We can’t assume it will be an easy game against Plymouth because they’ll come flying at us.

“But we have to win. We want to bounce back to get us buzzing for the Brighton game on Saturday.”

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