Burnley manager Sean Dyche delighted with narrow margin victories
Burnley have established themselves as the masters of narrow victories this season and Sean Dyche could not be happier.
Of the Clarets' nine Premier League wins, eight have been by a one-goal margin and six of them have ended 1-0.
The latest of those came on a wet and windy night at Turf Moor on Tuesday when Ashley Barnes' late goal earned Dyche's men victory over Stoke.
The result lifted Burnley up to the remarkable heights of fourth place in the table ahead of Wednesday's matches, above the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham.
Burnley are the lowest scorers in the top 10 having managed only 16 goals from 17 games, which makes their points tally all the better, according to Dyche.
He said: "I love the 1-0s. Fans don't like them, but trust me, every manager does. Brian Clough used to love a 1-0, and there was a genius, and he used to tell the players.
"Clean sheet, score a goal - 1-0 or 100-0, the idea is to win. So if you can win, that's the marker. If you can score more, brilliant.
"This is not an easy business. Playing in the Premier League, to try to keep clean sheets and win games and score goals, it's very, very difficult. If you look at the scoring stats, apart from the real superpowers, not many teams find it easy to score goals.
"We're not making out that we're going to score five a game. We're saying, 'All right, we might be in these games that are tight' and 'Can we get on the right side of those tight margins?'.
"You take them as they come and you take the results. We know what we are."
Both teams were forced into defensive reshuffles during the game. Stephen Ward was replaced by Premier League debutant Charlie Taylor for the Clarets just before half-time after taking a knock to the knee.
Dyche is hopeful the left-back will recover quickly, while Ben Mee and Matt Lowton could also be available for Saturday's trip to Brighton.
Stoke boss Mark Hughes is already without Bruno Martins Indi for a significant spell because of a groin injury and he could be joined on the sidelines by Kurt Zouma.
"It looks like he's damaged his hamstring," said Hughes, whose misfiring side face a huge game at home to West Ham on Saturday.
"Hopefully it might have been a bit of a spasm and a little bit of cramp maybe. That's looking on the bright side. Probably the reality is he'll miss a couple of games.
"That's been a little bit the story in terms of the guys at the back. It's not easy when you're constantly making changes. But it was good to get Geoff (Cameron) back. He hasn't had a lot of training so for him to complete the 90 minutes and be as effective as he was, that's a real positive for us."
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