de Boer’s glass is half full going into Burnley clash
Everyone’s had a few weeks to get used to the pace of the new Premier League season but there’s always a few team that struggle a tad early on. One of those teams is Crystal Palace who have failed to get a goal on the board this term let alone a point.
The South Londoners will be hoping that all changes this weekend though as they head north to take on Burnley on Sunday.
Looking towards Sunday’s game Crystal Palace manager, Frank de Boer said:
“We know Burnley can play two types of football: if you give them time they can play on the ground, if not they always have the option of Vokes to win duels and second balls.”
“They’re doing very well but I also feel that we have a possibility to get a good result.”
Despite sitting in 19th the Dutchman had a very positive mindset as he claimed he always sees the glass as half full, one reason for this could be that his injury leastwise relatively short going into the weekend.
Other than Connor Wickham and Wilfried Zaha the only updates came regarding the returning Mamadou Sakho, who isn’t yet match fit, and Pape Souaré, here’s what de Boer had to say on the two:
“I’m very delighted (to have Sakho back), from the start he was one of our targets, he’s looking good, he was very eager to come here and is already a very good influence.”
“He’s (Souaré) very close, he’s been training with the first team, he played 60-70 minutes in his last match(for the under 23’s), he still needs to play two or three 90 minutes and then he can come back into the team, I’m very happy for him and the club.”
Sunday’s game will see Palace make their third trip to Turf Moor since returning to the Premier League but if previous records are anything to go by this could be a difficult game for the Eagles.
In their four Premier League meetings with Burnley, Palace have only won once in a 3-2 victory in January 2015. However, with Burnley losing their only home game of the season so far to West Brom it could be a chance for de Boer’s to shift the pressure onto their hosts.
Also, despite losing his first three Crystal Palace games there do seem to be encouraging signs for de Boer going back into action after the international break as he said:
“When you analyse our last three games everyone said we played well at Liverpool, we were very tight and didn’t give away many chances and we could’ve won. Swansea had two shots on goal, we had eight or nine and didn’t score so there are positives that I’m focusing on but we need to get rid of the stupid mistakes.”
With a bit of a break to refine things at the training ground we’ll see if that has ironed out the frequency of those stupid mistakes but make no mistakes, Crystal Palace will need to take points from tomorrow’s game or the situation could get even more tense.