McKenna: Burnley Are a Fantastic Premier League Level Team Friday, 27th Jan 2023 17:15 Town boss Kieran McKenna says the Blues will be taking on Premier League level opposition when they face Burnley at Portman Road in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Saturday afternoon. The Clarets are the Championship’s runaway leaders, five points ahead of second-placed Sheffield United and 18 in front of Watford in third, having taken 62 points from their 28 games. They have won their last six in all competitions with their only defeat in their last 11 a 2-0 Carabao Cup loss at Manchester United. They have won the other 10 since their most recent league loss, a 5-2 reverse away against the Blades on November 5th. Since their last draw, a 1-1 stalemate at Birmingham on October 19th, the Clarets have won 14 out of 16 and have lost only three games this season in all competitions. Away from home in the league, they have won seven, drawn four and lost two, the fourth-best form on the road in their division. In round three of the FA Cup, they won 4-2 away at AFC Bournemouth with Manuel Benson and Anass Zaroury netting two apiece. Town go into the match off the back of Tuesday’s 4-0 mauling of Morecambe at Portman Road, however, McKenna says that hasn’t really had much of an impact on his preparations for the visit by the Clarets. “It’s not changed much, to be honest,” he said. “The cup is a world of its own, the game is detached from what we are trying to do in the league. “Whether we pull off an amazing result or we go out of the cup tomorrow, I don’t think it should have any bearing on Cambridge next week. “The Morecambe game and the good performance and good result will give us confidence and momentum and a good feeling going into the Cambridge game. For today, [the cup] is a game which we are looking forward to in its own right.” The Blues boss knows Burnley will present a very different challenge from those his side faces on a weekly basis in League One. “But also being respectful and humble and honest about the level of opposition we are playing. “Burnley is a fantastic team, a team, in my opinion, of Premier League level, comfortably to be honest, in terms of watching them and the quality of their play and the quality of players they have brought in and kept from their Premier League squad. “It is a real high level team, so we need to be humble and we need to know it’s not all going to be our way. We need to be ready to defend at times. These are challenges that we are looking forward to. “It is not what we face every week, we are used to being the dominant team in games and we will certainly try and be proactive and aggressive as always. “But we know that there’s going to be spells, maybe long spells, where we are going to have to work really hard against the ball and we are looking forward to that challenge.”
While some clubs struggle following relegation from the top flight, Burnley regrouped under new manager Vincent Kompany, who took charge last June, and have had a remarkably strong campaign up to now. “It’s not always a given when you go down from the Premier League that you are automatically going to bounce back up,” McKenna reflected. “They made a lot of changes — obviously managerial but also style-wise, recruitment-wise. Watching them, it looks like they have done a really incredible job recruiting players from the European market, which they obviously have very good insider knowledge of. “We should say a big credit to the manager and the club and his staff in how they have managed to change the style, introduce new players into English football a lot of whom have hit the ground and excelled really, really quickly. “And also make good use of the players who have been at Burnley for a long time in the Premier League. “They have put that together into a formidable team and you have to say credit to them for that. There are things, as a football club, that we can take and learn from that journey and we are looking forward to testing ourselves against them tomorrow.” Like Town, Burnley are likely to make changes from their strongest Championship line-up. Would McKenna prefer to be testing his team against their strongest XI? “They have got such a good squad that they are able to change personnel,” he continued. “They are able to change their strikers — [Jay] Rodriguez and [Ashley] Barnes have both been playing and doing a really good job. “In wide areas, they have two players sharing each role who have been doing a really good job. So they have really good depth and equal quality in a lot of positions and they have of course added two more players this week as well. I think whatever team they play, it’s going to be a really strong Burnley team. “It would have been nice to play them in a free week instead of coming off a Saturday-Tuesday with some knocks and niggles. It would have been nice to play them in a free week with a bit more time to build up to it and go into it completely fresh, but that’s not the case. “I know Burnley will have a strong team out and I know our team will be ready to fight with everything as we did in the last round against Rotherham. “We want to fight and compete and show we are a good team and make it difficult for Burnley, and do everything we can to still be in the hat on Saturday night.” Town will be playing their first fourth-round FA Cup tie since January 2010 when they were beaten 2-1 at Southampton. The Blues’ last fourth-round tie at Portman Road was back in January 2007 when an Alan Lee penalty saw Jim Magilton’s side to a 1-0 win and through to their most recent fifth-round match, a 1-0 defeat at Watford. Asked about making it through to the next stage for the first time in 16 years and extending Town's run, McKenna said: “It’s nice to dream and if we don’t dream of the next round and don’t believe we can win the game, then there’s no point turning up. We certainly do and we know the fans are turning up in big numbers, which is fantastic. “It’s the first time we have had a fourth-round game in quite a while and the first fourth-round game at Portman Road in many years. “We just have to enjoy the occasion. We know it’s going to be really tough and we know they are a really high level opponent. But we have to enjoy it. As a group of staff and players, and I hope as a club and supporters, we enjoy the challenge. “We want to be bringing big clubs and good teams to Portman Road both in the league and in the cup competitions. The only way we are going to do that is by keep improving and progressing and keep winning matches. “This game is a reward for getting through the tricky early rounds and beating Rotherham in the last round. It’s a fantastic competition and it will be a dream to go even further. But we can only look at the next game with excitement, with humility and do everything we can.” McKenna says he hasn’t crossed paths with Clarets boss Kompany previously: “No, I haven’t. We know some people mutually but I haven’t before but I can only say he’s obviously doing a very, very good job at Burnley. “A fantastic player, I enjoyed watching him, he was the study for lots of defensive best practice videos that I would have done as a young coach and was a fantastic defender, and is now transferring that well to his teams in terms of how they defend but also how they build and attack with the ball.” McKenna sees aspects of the Manchester City side with whom Kompany won the Premier League four times, the FA Cup twice and the League Cup on four occasions in the forme Belgian international's Burnley team. “I think hugely,” he said. “I think it’s a very, very similar model to the Man City teams that he would have finished his Man City career in and that’s been an enjoyable challenge, one that I’ve had lots of experience of as well in my career, and certainly preparing for this game is a unique challenge compared to what we face a weekly basis. “But many, many similarities to preparing for the challenges that you would have faced with Vincent’s old playing team.” McKenna, of course, faced City when on the coaching staff at their great rivals Manchester United. Did the red side of Manchester have a decent record against the blue during his time there? “We had some very good results, that’s for other people to check up [they won three times at the Etihad],” he said. “But that’s competing with Man City on an even level and this is, of course, not. “But anything that we can take in terms of previous experiences and ideas of how to stop the opposition and control the opposition we’ll take them where possible. “But it’s two different clubs, two different teams and the game will have its own life and its own challenges and we need to be ready for them.”
McKenna says the Portman Road crowd, which is set to be in excess of 25,000 with Brett Johnson and Berke Bakay from the American Three Lions group among them, will have a role to play. “Massive. I think it’s fantastic really,” he said. “It’s a big effort, the cup games aren’t included in the season tickets either, so we’re grateful and thankful to the supporters for coming out in those sort of numbers to support us. “I don’t think there are many clubs who are going to have that sort of percentage of capacity for the FA Cup games this week anywhere in the country. “It’s a big credit to them. We hope to do it justice and I just hope they enjoy it, to be honest. “It’s a game we all have to enjoy. You have to win a few rounds to get here, you can always say when you’ve got through that it was easy, but if it was easy, then the club would be in the fourth round every year. “The club, the players have done well to get to this point and it’s important that we go on and enjoy the challenge now and take it head on.” Saturday’s game isn’t the only cup tie Town will be involved in this week with Tractor Girls hosting Lewes at the AGL Arena in Felixstowe on Sunday and the U18s in FA Youth Cup action against Liverpool at Portman Road on Friday. “It’s nice to be fighting on all fronts,” McKenna said. “Everyone is looking forward to the Youth Cup game next Friday. The girls have got a big game on Sunday and, of course, we have a big game this weekend. “Let’s hope that at the end of it, a couple of those teams — if not all three — can still be in their respective competitions.” McKenna has said he’ll make changes to his team as he looks to keep everyone in his squad involved and match fit, while a couple of players have minor knocks which are set to keep them out. Vaclav Hladky will be in goal, while Janoi Donacien, Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess could return at the back. Last week’s new signing Harry Clarke is cup-tied having played for Stoke City in their 3-0 win at Hartlepool in the last round. Greg Leigh may get a start on the left with Kayden Jackson perhaps in line to come in on the right. Skipper Sam Morsy might be one of those to keep his place in the team, perhaps alongside Massimo Luongo, who would be making his second Blues debut, although Cameron Humphreys is also a potential starter. McKenna has plenty of options for the number 10 roles with Sone Aluko and Kyle Edwards both likely to be keen for starts. McKenna may want to get more minutes into Nathan Broadhead following his impressive full debut against the Shrimps, while top scorer Conor Chaplin and Marcus Harness are other options. Up front, McKenna may look to give George Hirst a second start as the on-loan Leicester man gets up to speed following his lack of involvement during his previous loan spell at Blackburn. The Clarets will be without widemen Manuel Benson, due to an ankle injury, and Johann Berg Gudmundsson, who picked up a knock in training. Burnley may include new £8 million South African international striker Lyle Foster, signed this week from Belgian Pro League side Westerlo. Belgian U21 international centre-half Ameen Al-Dakhil, who signed earlier in the month from St Truiden in his home country, could make his debut, as may Swedish central defender Hjalmar Ekdal, who joined for £2.5 million from Stockholm club Djurgådens this week. Republic of Ireland international striker Michael Obafemi is close to signing from Swansea, although probably not in time for Saturday. Historically, Town have won 19 of the games between the sides (18 in the league), Burnley 13 (13) with a further 11 (11) ending in draws. The clubs have never previously met in the FA Cup with the only cup match between the sides an October 1977 League Cup third round tie which Town won 2-1 at Turf Moor. The teams last met at the start of January 2016 when Town stretched their unbeaten away record to seven matches but were unable achieve a club record six successive victories on the road as they drew 0-0 at Turf Moor. The result was a fair reflection of a game which was amongst the more entertaining 0-0s. In the previous August at Portman Road, Town climbed to the top of the Championship table as second-half goals from Freddie Sears and David McGoldrick saw them to a 2-0 victory. After an even first half, Sears steered home a Brett Pitman cross in the 66th minute and McGoldrick nodded in the second from a Ainsley Maitland-Niles corner five minutes later. Blues coach Lee Grant, who turns 40 today, had two spells with the Clarets, a short loan in 2005/06 in which he made one start and then a three-year stay between July 2010 and May 2013 in which he made 125 starts and one sub appearance. Former Town loan keeper Will Norris, who made 20 Blues appearances in 2019/20, is a Burnley player but is currently on loan at Peterborough United. Saturday’s referee is Tom Nield, who has shown 65 yellow cards and two red in 22 games so far this season. The West Yorkshire-based official hit the headlines earlier in the week when, on the advice of his assistant, he erroneously red-carded Bolton striker Dion Charles when it was actually teammate Elias Kachunga who had punched Forest Green defender Brandon Cooper. Nield’s last Town match was the 2-0 home defeat by Portsmouth in the Papa Johns Trophy at Portman Road in November in which he yellow-carded Blues captain Morsy and two visitors. Before that, he was in charge of the 2-0 defeat at Sunderland in November 2021 in which he awarded the Black Cats a late penalty for handball after a Ross Stewart shot struck Toto Nsiala, who was standing just in front of him which Aiden McGeady converted. In addition, he booked Bersant Celina and four home players. He refereed the 0-0 home draw with the MK Dons in March in which he booked only Flynn Downes and Armando Dobra. Prior to that Nield, who is a senior nurse/matron with the Acute & Emergency Service at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, officiated in the Blues’ 1-0 win at Hull City in February 2021 in which he yellow-carded Nsiala, Myles Kenlock, Keanan Bennetts and two Tigers. He also took control of the 0-0 draw with Oxford at the Kassam Stadium in 2019/20 when he took the players off for 15 minutes due to monsoon conditions and cautioned Gwion Edwards and one home player. Nield’s only other Blues match was the 4-0 Leasing.com Trophy victory over Gillingham at Portman Road in October 2019 in which he yellow-carded Emyr Huws and two Gills. Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Donacien, Woolfenden, Edmundson, Keogh, Burgess, Burns, Vincent-Young, Davis, Leigh, Morsy, Evans, Luongo, Humphreys, Edwards, Chaplin, Harness, Aluko, Broadhead, Ladapo, Hirst, Jackson, Ahadme.
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