Midfielder talks Spurs defeat and challenging start to the season
Josh Brownhill gave an honest assessment of Saturday afternoon’s defeat to Tottenham Hostpur at Turf Moor, believing that the team need to take a look at recent performances over the international break and have more belief moving forward.
Reflecting on the challenging afternoon, Brownhill said: “It’s a disappointing one, I thought the first half we showed a lot of good spells, especially to get ourselves a goal ahead. You know they’re a good team with some very good players and when they get a chance, they put it away. It’s very, very disappointing to be honest, when we go a goal or two goals down, our heads go down and we need to get our heads up, there’s still a lot of the game to play. Overall, it’s very disappointing really.”
The midfielder is well versed in the Premier League, from previous seasons, and the quality of opposition the Clarets are facing.
“It’s knowing when you play these teams, they are very good teams it’s hard to get anything from them. Tottenham have started this season very, very well, they’ve recruited some really good players.
“We’ve had a very tough start to the beginning of the season, and you go in there and the lads are going to be down, rightfully so, we didn’t put out our best performance today. It’s a long season, it’s a real tough one you know, it’s completely different to last season, we’ve just got to stick with it, keep learning. We’ve also got to take it up another level and that’s what the Premier League is, and we’ll all do that.
“There’s a little bit of a break now, the chance to sort of relax, come back against Forest. That’ll be a game that we’ll 100% be going after that win, it’ll be a big game for us.”
Burnley have seen significant changes over the course of the summer transfer window, welcoming 13 new faces to the squad – and Brownhill believes there’s plenty of quality to build on.
“We’ve recruited some quality players, you can see it in spells, on the ball, individually they are very, very good but sometimes it’s out of possession, it’s reacting and its other things, it’s not just with the ball. We’re going to learn that we’re growing some really quality players, we’re new still. In the Championship you can sort of get away with a little bit of a slow start, where the quality’s not as good, but here you have a little bit of the ball, you give the ball away next thing you know you can be one down, two down, even if you are a goal ahead. So, there’s some young lads in there, they’ll learn from this, it’s for us experienced ones who have been here before to realise that you’ve got to keep believing because the games will come around fast. Like I say the next game is against Forest where it’ll be a big game for us because we went there the other night and we put out a real good performance and we got that win. It’ll be more important if we get the win in the league when we play them again.”
While disappointed with the result, Brownhill was taking positives from Lyle Foster’s goal scoring form and his own goal this afternoon.
“A little bit of positive, it’s obviously nice to score and to contribute. I’m really happy for Lyle, I think it’s back-to-back goals now in the Prem, which is a tough league to get that in, he’s a real quality player, so hopefully he can keep that goal scoring form.
“The main thing is we wanted to win or get something out of the game, and we didn’t, I’m sure we’ll be disappointed tonight but over the next few days, we’ve got to relax and sort of forget about it and move on and improve from the weaknesses we had today which I’m sure will be done.”
The Clarets have the international break before returning to league action on the 18th September away at Nottingham Forest. When asked if the break might help offer the group time to reflect, he added: “Yes, I suppose it is, have a little break, a few lads go away with international break and come back with more of a hunger and forget about the first three games that we haven’t taken any points. The teams that we’ve played have been real tough, you’ve got City, you’ve had Villa, now you’ve had Spurs, where they’re top quality teams but we’ve got to realise that we’re a good team and we’ve got to start not conceding as many chances I suppose, and going forward taking some more. I’ve got full belief in this team and the manager as well, it’s something that we’ve always done from last season where we’ve been down. The way I can think about it we got beat by Sheffield United and then we had Blackburn the following game and then we went on a big run, so there’s no reason why after these defeats, when we come back, we can put on some good performances and get a few points.”
