Lincoln City head coach Tom Shaw believes City have an opportunity to capitalise on Burnley’s difficult start when the Clarets visit Sincil Bank on Saturday.
When we travelled to Turf Moor in 2017, we were a non-league side taking on Premier League opposition in the FA Cup. Nine years on, we welcome Burnley as Championship rivals sitting below us in the table, with the chance to extend that gap and claim our first league victory over them since 1991.
Tom is well aware of the quality available to a side whose results have fallen short of expectations, as he expressed in his pre-match press conference.
“It’s an opportunity for us,” he said.
“It’s definitely an opportunity, but we can’t take Burnley lightly. They had Premier League winners in their XI in their last game, and they’ve got an incredible squad of players when you see it written down.
“They’ve probably not had the start they would have wanted, but you can imagine the message within their camp. They’ve got to get their season up and running, so it’s a very dangerous opponent.”
For Tom, City’s task is to reproduce the better spells from our home performances and make Sincil Bank an uncomfortable place for the visitors. Despite the heavy defeat against West Ham, he believes the games here have shown what his side can do when they get their approach right.
“We know the opportunity. They’re coming to our place, and we’ve created the feel that we want at home in three of the five games, definitely. We’ve just got to get to those levels, and we’re stronger as a team from our experiences.
“Obviously, West Ham was a very tough night, but we’ve had four games to reflect on in our environment, at our ground. We know what gets Sincil Bank into the right place. We know what sort of behaviours and what sort of style we want to make it very difficult for Burnley, and that is our intent.
“We’re aware of what they’ve got at their disposal. It’s an impressive group of players. We’re just hopefully going to catch them in a tough moment.”
Burnley will get no sympathy from us if their difficult start continues for another week. A first home win, a bigger gap to the Clarets and an end to a league wait stretching back to 1991 would make for a fairly satisfying Saturday.
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