5 reasons behind Burnley's success this season

With 11 games played, we have a familiar looking top 6 in the Premier League. Manchester City look set to run away with the title and the rest of the sides are expected to fight for the other three UEFA Champions League places.

Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea are the favourites to finish in the top 4. Liverpool and Arsenal are in contention as well, but they seem to be lagging behind at the moment. Behind the top 6, we have a big surprise package. It's Burnley, who finished 16th last season. Right now, they are actually level on points with Arsenal and Liverpool.

It's been an amazing rise by the side that's playing in the Premier League for only the 4th time. Here's an overview of how a struggling bottom half club has been transformed into a team that's challenging for a European spot:

---

#5 Manager Sean Dyche

Dyche has been in charge since 2012

It all starts with the manager, of course. Sean Dyche might be the league's most underrated manager. The 46-year-old former centre-back has moulded his team into a side that's very tough to break down. Burnley has so far conceded just nine goals. Only the two Manchester sides and Tottenham currently have a better defensive record.

Dyche plays a simple 4-4-2 formation or a 4-4-1-1 setup depending on the situation. He likes to use an extra midfielder in away games and in matches against the bigger sides. He doesn't set up his side ultra-defensively like many other Premier League managers tend to do when taking on the better sides.

This has helped Burnley be a threat offensively as well. For example, they have managed to score against Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea this season. They even beat the latter away from home 3-2.

The man, who's sometimes called "The Ginger Mourinho", also deserves credit for his man management. Burnley plays as a unit week in week out, which means everybody in the team has to know their role to perfection and Dyche has helped different players to adapt to it if needed.

Steven Defour was a very unusual signing for Burnley side back in 2016. A record fee of £8 million was paid for the man that was on Manchester United's radar during Sir Alex Ferguson's final years at the club.

He's technically very gifted and a good addition for any side that likes to play the possession game. At first, he struggled in this Burnley side and was even dropped at the end of last season, but he's now an automatic choice.

Burnley has a unique pre-season among Premier League clubs, which includes "Gaffer's Day" - Dyche makes his players run two hours to see if they are ready for the very physically demanding league.

Defour didn't spend the pre-season at Burnley a year ago and got his first taste of it last summer. "It was hard, obviously, but I enjoyed it. It was a good day and I started to realize I can do the job," said the Belgian about the experience recently.

#4 Loyalty and Belief

Happy times have arrived for Burnley fans

Unlike many Premier League clubs, who seem to change managers as often as socks, Burnley has stayed loyal to Dyche. Even after the club was relegated from the league in 2014/15.

Chairman Mike Garlick had every reason to say that this is the end of the road at the club for the man that arrived in 2012 after a brief spell at Watford. Instead, Dyche was given another chance and he delivered promotion straight away.

There seems to be no panic button located anywhere at the Turf Moor and the manager is free to continue his work without added pressure even when times aren't sunny. Last season, Dyche even survived a run of five defeats in six matches that happened in November-December.

There was also no talks of him getting the sack when the team won only two matches from the start of February until the end of April.

Dyche has also remained loyal to the club. There were talks about him leaving for Leicester or Everton when both sides recently got rid of their managers, but no deal was made. Both are currently below Burnley in the league table, but they are bigger sides with more potential.

These are undoubtedly attractive positions for Dyche, but he's still the Burnley manager. Even though he's probably taken them as far as he - or anyone, as a matter of fact, can.

#3 Summer transfers

Chris Wood scored in his league debut and has three goals in eight games

When the summer transfer window closed, it looked like Burnley were one of the losers of it. The club lost its best defender Michael Keane to Everton and Andre Gray, who scored nine league goals last season, joined Watford. Dyche had £45 million to spend on new players, but he invested only £30 million of it.

Jonathan Walters and Phil Bardsley joined from Stoke with a combined fee of below £3 million, Nahki Wells, who was among Huddersfield's top scorers last season in the Championship, cost £4.86 million.

Jack Cork came from Swansea for £8 million and, near the end of the window, Chris Wood was made the new record signing of the club with a fee around £15 million involved in his transfer from Leeds United.

Wells, Bardsley and Walters haven't played much so far and it's impossible to judge their impact on the team, but Cork and Wood have been superb signings. The latter scored in his league debut against Tottenham and has three of the team's ten goals to his name. Cork has just received his first England call-up after a wonderful start to the season.

With so many hardworking shot blockers on the team, it's no surprise that scoring against the Clarets looks like an impossible task at times.

#2 Scouting

James Tarkowski leads the league in blocked shots

Dyche's previous deals deserve a mention as well. The scouting department has done a brilliant job in identifying some great talent. James Tarkowski, who tops the blocks table alongside Brighton's Lewis Dunk - both have 19 to their name - was brought in during the winter transfer window in 2016. A modest fee around £3.5 million was paid to Brentford.

Tarkowski has filled the boots of Keane incredibly well, forming one of the best central defensive partnerships in the league with Ben Mee. The vice-captain of the team has so far blocked 18 shots. Losing Keane was no doubt a blow, but Dyche must've known that he already had a perfect replacement at the club.

Nick Pope is also having a superb season. The 25-year-old goalkeeper was signed in the Summer of 2016, costing just above £1 million. He was set to be Tom Heaton's backup for the foreseeable future, but he's suddenly the main man between the pipes at Burnley.

Heaton, who would've not looked out of place in the Premier League Team of the Year last season, suffered a serious shoulder injury on September 10. Pope, with no previous Premier League games to his name, came in and he's been spectacular with four clean sheets in eight outings.

There are already talks going around that he might soon be in the England squad. Tarkowski probably isn't far off from his Three Lions debut either.

#1 Improvement away from home

Burnley started the season with an away win at Chelsea

Due to poor form shown during the latter half of the season, which saw Burnley win just four matches after the turn of the year, the team had only a 6-point cushion ahead of the relegation zone. The Clarets mostly dropped that far because of away form. They won only once, all season, away from Turf Moor, and that came near the end of the season, on April 29th at Crystal Palace.

In a bizarre twist, Dyche's men have more away wins (3) than home wins (2) this season, so far. They already have more away points (11) than they collected during the whole of last season. There aren't many sides that have managed over three away wins; only Manchester City, Tottenham and Chelsea. It's been quite a turnaround, indeed.

The only loss away from home came at the hands of Manchester City, and as we all know, City beat everybody these days, with relative ease. Though, it wasn't very easy against Burnley.

With less than 20 minutes to go, City scored twice inside two minutes. Before that, a shady Sergio Agüero penalty was the only goal of the game. "If I kicked my kid in the garden he wouldn't fall like that," Dyche said about the penalty, which was won by Bernardo Silva.

In addition to the Etihad Stadium, Burnley have already visited Stamford Bridge, Wembley and Anfield. Most of the toughest away fixtures have been played and going forward, the club will be confident of adding even more away wins and overall points to their tally.