Saturday 31 January 2015 21:09, UK
On-loan defender Michael Keane is remaining upbeat about Burnley’s Premier League survival hopes despite Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Sunderland.
Connor Wickham’s header and a goal on his home debut from Jermain Defoe saw Sean Dyche’s side slump to their third consecutive defeat.
But Keane, who has featured in 11 of the club’s last 12 matches, believes last year’s Sky Bet Championship winners can take heart from another spirited away performance.
“In general our away form has been good, you look at Newcastle, Man City, Stoke, so we’ve proved that we can play away from home,” he said. “Today was a bit of a blip and hopefully we can correct it.
“The manager says to us every day that we have got to have that belief (than we can stay up), every single one of us, and I think we do.
“You can see that from some of our performances in coming from behind and that will stand us in good stead come the end of the season.”
Burnley goalkeeper Tom Heaton insists the whole squad remains confident they can avoid the drop and retain their Premier League status next season.
“We’ve never really lost our belief,” he said. “We know the sort of quality we have and I think we have shown that in the last 23 games, even the games we didn’t win.
“I think the important thing is we focus on what we do and what we’re about and we make sure we maximise our output.
“I think that will give us a great chance of winning games.”
Burnley striker Danny Ings, whose contract expires this summer, has been linked with a move away from the club during the current transfer window.
Ings is the Burnley’s top goalscorer with seven goals this term and Heaton can understand why other clubs would be interested in the 22-year-old former Bournemouth striker.
“Ingsey has shown himself to be a top-drawer player, he’s getting better and better all the time,” he said.
“Obviously we’d like to keep him. If we don’t, we don’t, if we do, we do. We’ll go on whatever happens either way, but he’s an outstanding player and he has been fantastic again this season.”
