Burnley manager Scott Parker believes his team is in a “much better place” than when they last faced Sunderland in the Championship.
The Clarets will face the Black Cats at Turf Moor on Friday evening, trying to make apologies for the 1-0 defeat they suffered at the Stadium of Light back in August. The match came in the midst of tremendous turmoil for Parker and his players.
Since then, Burnley has established themselves as serious promotion challengers, conceding only nine goals in 26 league games this season. They are also two points ahead of Sunderland in the table going into this weekend’s match. Parker believes his team will be a stronger opponent for Regis Le Bris when they meet again.
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During a news conference, he stated that the current state of the squad and group cannot be compared to that of the past. We were at the height of things, as I already stated, which was quite unprecedented at the time. Things that perhaps weren’t out in the open, but we were definitely in a state in that fixture.
“Where we’ve come from is incomparable to where we are today. A difficult game on Friday night, like it was before, but I believe we’re in a better position. Certainly, psychologically as a group, we’re in a much better place, and fundamentally, in terms of where we’ve come from and how we’ve evolved along the way.”
Parker praised Sunderland’s achievements this season, but believes Burnley will be able to counter their attacking threat at home.
He continued, “They’re a really excellent team. I believe they have shown this throughout the season. The team is exceptionally well-coached and has performed admirably. They have players and pace on their team that we must be totally aware of, and we will be.”We confront similar teams and qualities, and we’ve handled it very well. As always, we’ll approach this game with the goal of being as dominant as possible, extracting everything we can from it and nullifying them to the greatest extent possible.”
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