Burnley boss Sean Dyche feels the back-to-back heavy defeats against Manchester City and Chelsea have not caused any great damage to his players’ confidence.
The Clarets’ last two outings have seen them lose 5-0 at Premier League champions City on October 20 and then 4-0 at home against Chelsea eight days later.
When asked ahead of Saturday’s trip to West Ham how much damage had been done to confidence after conceding nine times in two matches and what he had done to try to restore some of it, Dyche said: “I haven’t really had to restore it because there is a balance.
“You have to realise the players have an awareness of who they’re playing against.
“There’s no point in dressing it up to players because I think players are bright about football. They watch other teams and they know where it’s at.
“The big boys are showing why they are there, showing the power of their finances, the power of the quality they bring in, the power of the coaching.
“So I don’t really think there is that big a deal about confidence – it’s just a reality of the market.
“I think if you can see through that, still make sense of it, because you have to learn from it, but remind ourselves of what we are and go and deliver performances, then that’s the key to it.
“You’re going to take some knocks over a Premier League season.
“It’s about dealing with that, making sense of it and moving forward, and that’s something we’ve been good at.
“The resilience and the mentality has been really good, and it has to be good because it’s a demanding league.”
Burnley won two and drew one of their three league matches prior to those two losses.
Dyche’s men, whose start to the season included playing three two-legged Europa League qualifying ties, are currently 15th with eight points from 10 games, three points above the relegation zone.
He added: “We know we’re still kind of re-finding the form from last season (when they came seventh) and there’s been good spells of it.
“I think we’ve got to find that game after game to get back to where we want to be.
“We’re not a million miles away, but we’re not where we were, and we’ve got to keep working and fighting to get back to where we were.”
Burnley face a West Ham outfit who are two places higher than them in the table with the same amount of points.
