Football
Exclusive: Josh Cullen Confident Burnley Will Rediscover Ruthless Edge in Premier League Return Quest
Josh Cullen believes Burnley can rediscover their ‘ruthless’ form as they aim for a Premier League return. Despite early struggles with scoring, Cullen shares his confidence in the team’s progress and commitment to improvement.
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Josh Cullen has backed Burnley to discover their “ruthless” streak this season in their quest for a magical Premier League return.
The Clarets have started the season in decent form and in the early promotion mix having lost just two of their opening 14 fixtures back in the Championship.
Decent Start but Goals Lacking
But goals have been an issue with the ambitious Lancashire outfit having not scored in their last three matches and only scored eight goals in their last 11 league outings.
A far cry from the start of the season when they hammered Luton 4-1 and Cardiff 5-0 in a blistering start to life back in the second tier.
“It’s been a good start for us and yeah, the goals will definitely come,” Cullen told SportsBoom.com.
Look, it’s a new team that has come together over the summer, there’s been a lot of comings and outgoings.
Josh Cullen
Cullen’s Confidence in Team’s Progress
“It’s been a building period for us I suppose, a bedding in process for the new boys that have come in – and then the lads that are here obviously getting used to playing with new players and under a new manager, so it’s been a decent start.”
“We know we’ve got a lot of improvements to make and a lot of development still to do, but there’s also a lot of things we can be really pleased with, especially with how we’ve started the season.”
The experienced Republic of Ireland international added: “It’s a work-in progress, there’s a lot of things we wanted to improve at the start of the season, so looking back on the first 13 league games and reflecting on it, we can see we’ve done that as a team.”
Addressing Ruthlessness and Clinical Finishing
“But there’s still more to improve on like adding more goals to our games and being more ruthless and clinical is something we’re definitely going to work on.”
“I have no doubt that with the sort of work we’re putting in on the training pitch – and in the meeting room where we’re analysing where we can get better – that we will start creating more chances.”
“And we have the players to score the goals when we start doing that.”
Cullen famously played a pivotal role in helping the Clarets win promotion to the Premier League in his first season at Turf Moor.
The 28-year-old midfielder was quick to play down any added pressure the club might have its shoulders with loyal fans understandably hungry for an immediate return to the big time.
Neil has been a journalist for longer than he'd care to remember, having written for national newspapers and respected publications for over 25 years. For the last three years he has worked freelance for BBC Sport, working on the production desk as a sub-editor and also as a writer, covering a whole range of sports.