Burnley boss Scott Parker (Image: PA)
Burnley boss Scott Parker (Image: PA)
Scott Parker isn’t reading too much into Wolves’ poor start as his Burnley side aim to get their first away points on the board at Molineux.
Vitor Pereira’s side find themselves at the bottom of the table and are still waiting for their victory in the league.
Meanwhile, the Clarets head to the Midlands full of confidence following a hard-fought victory against Leeds United.
“We're really early in the season and to be quite honest, our focus is just on us. That sounds cliche but that's the way it is really,” Parker told a press conference.
“The different situations and scenarios teams fall in throughout this year will vary every single game.
“There'll be teams where you're sitting here saying they've not lost in 10 and how hard is this going to be, or vice versa really.
“The facts are it's the Premier League and it brings huge quality every game you play. What we need to focus on is us, what we need to bring to this game and showing our quality.
“If we do that we'll be right in this game, we'll be hugely competitive like we have been this year.”
Lyle Foster missed out against Leeds after picking up an injury on international duty with South Africa, but the forward comes back in contention this weekend.
“No fresh injury news really, we're fully fit. Lyle's back, he's been training with us the last three or four days so he's back in contention as well,” the head coach explained.
Parker was delighted to secure a second victory of the season against Leeds but still feels there is more to come from his squad.
“As always, the mantra is taking each game as it comes and we ticked one off at the weekend where we got a win,” he said.
“We now need to produce the same level of certain elements to our game, we need to improve certain elements.
“While we won at the weekend, there's definitely elements we can improve and we're constantly looking at the bits where we can grow as a team.
“There was a lot on that game at the weekend and we showed a certain level about us which got us through different parts really.
“A technical element, our quality came through and then the back end of the game, an understanding of what game dynamics were needed to grind it out and get a clean sheet.”
The Burnley boss switched to a back four last weekend, with Axel Tuanzebe partnering Maxime Esteve while Josh Laurent dropped to the bench.
Parker was pleased to see the tweak pay off and believes his side’s tactical flexibility can reap rewards throughout the campaign.
“We've worked a lot on different shapes and different systems this year for us to try and be flexible,” he added.
“The work we did regarding the weekend’s game was probably a couple of weeks so the real compliment from me comes to the players in terms of executing that.
“There was a limited amount of time and they needed to have a real clear understanding and then go and execute.
“As always regarding shape, I think we're in a good position at this moment in time to vary that. Whether we want to go a back three, a back four, how we change structure and how we change shape will be good for us really.”