Clarets defender Charlie Taylor determined to pull away from danger in the Premier League

A 2-1 defeat at home to Aston Villa on New Year’s Day was Burnley’s third loss in succession and their sixth in their last eight league games.

That sent Sean Dyche’s side down to 15th in the division, just three points above their opponents and five above 19th place Watford, who have enjoyed a change of fortune under new boss Nigel Pearson.

“You look at the bottom half now and you can’t really call who’s going to go down,” said the left back, who picked up the man of the match accolade against the Villans.

“You want to be as far away from it as possible, we don’t want to be mentioned in that bracket, but it’s getting tight so we need to try and get as far away from it as possible.

“This is our fourth season [in a row] in the Premier League so we’re an experienced group and we know what we need to be doing.”

The remainder of the month couldn’t be much tougher for the Clarets. They travel to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea on January 11th while games against Leicester City (h), Manchester United (a) and Arsenal (h) follow.

Taylor said: “We’ve got a tough January, but you want to test yourself against the best.

“We’ve got a lot of the top six coming up but, especially at home, we’ll fancy ourselves against them. It’s a big month coming up and we need to be ready for it.”