Why Burnley hold no fear heading to the Etihad to take on Man City

Facing City has previously been a daunting challenge for the Clarets, who have lost their last 13 games against the blue side of Manchester.

While Saturday’s trip to the Etihad is still a major one for Parker’s side, he believes his side can take confidence from their displays against the likes of Liverpool, Manchester United and even Tottenham to an extent, despite the opening day 3-0 defeat.

“We sit here prepping for this week not fearful one bit,” Parker said.

“Games like this are exactly what we worked so hard for last year. We worked tirelessly to be on these stages against the best and this is a chance for us to show that, so we're hugely excited about the weekend.”

While Parker has every confidence in his players’ ability to carry out a gameplan, just as they did against Liverpool earlier this month, the Clarets boss will certainly not be underestimating the challenge at hand.

“I personally don't see many tougher challenges,” he added.

“We’re facing a football club, players and a coach that have been in and around an elite, world class level for some time now, so for sure we've got a big challenge ahead of us.

“But I revert back to what I said, in this early part of the season, five games down, we've come through it and that fills me with big confidence.

“No doubt we're going up against a colossal team and we understand that, and we'll approach it like we have over the last few weeks, when we face this sort of opposition, and hopefully give the best version of ourselves.

“At times, as you know, we're going to have to suffer, of course we are. But we'll adopt an attitude and a confidence and a belief in ourselves that we can go and show the best version of ourselves and hopefully cause them problems.”

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While Burnley’s only win this season came against Sunderland, Parker’s side have already shown they can be more than competitive against the best sides the league has to offer.

Because of that, the Clarets boss is excited to see what his side can do at the Etihad.

“I think we're definitely better prepared,” he said.

“You know, we've gone through some experiences over the last four or five games that we've been able to learn from. Those experiences sometimes have been negative ones for us and maybe we've struggled in certain moments.

“Certainly, when I look back at the Spurs game at the start of the season, there were elements to that where it looked very new for us or certainly there were things that we needed to improve on and I see a slow progression.

“But I have absolutely no doubt that we're going to be in a better place than we were a couple of months ago. But, of course, we need to be right at it this weekend to get through those moments as well.”

Against Liverpool, despite seeing so little of the ball, Burnley managed to remain fully concentrated at all times.

They came seconds away from securing a draw that would have been more than deserved, only to lose it at the death to a stoppage-time penalty.

Parker admits his Burnley side will need to replicate a similar type of performance if they’re to take anything away from the Etihad this weekend.

“That's probably one of the most fundamental in these sorts of games,” he said. “The level of concentration and the level of focus needs to be optimum.

“You need that in the Premier League anyway, but when you're going up against this sort of calibre of a team, it needs to be fundamental.

“There's elements to Liverpool where we were very, very good. That side of the game, I thought we were.

“But there are still elements that we can improve on. I'm hoping that we can see more improvement from the Liverpool game going into this one. You need to be highly tuned in and stick to the plan.

“Of course, that plan can change due to dynamics of how the game may play out or what may happen, but there needs to be a high level of focus from us.”

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