Saturday 14 April 2018 19:16, UK
Burnley manager Sean Dyche has praised 'outstanding' goalkeeper Nick Pope after he made some superb saves against Leicester on Saturday.
Although the Clarets went nine points clear in seventh place with the 2-1 victory, the visitors tested them on a number of occasions which saw World Cup hopeful Pope called into action.
He made some great stops to keep Leicester at bay with England manager Gareth Southgate watching on, who Dyche believes has some tough decisions to make.
"Our goalkeeper was outstanding," he told Sky Sports. "It's not easy for Gareth. It's not easy for any manager to pick a team let alone a squad to go to such an important tournament.
"But he [Pope] has had a very good season, a very strong season. He keeps himself level and calm and he knows he's got competition with Anders [Lindegaard], Adam [Legzdins] and Tom [Heaton] who has been fantastic for us and will be again, I'm sure for the time he's here.
"But Pope is in command of the shirt at the minute and he's delivering performances that make that so. If Gareth is impressed with that, of course we're pleased with that.
"Tarky [James Tarkowski] as well today, Corky [Jack Cork] so I think there are some good performances coming out of our players at the minute but Popey was outstanding today."
Burnley strode into a two-goal lead inside ten minutes before Jamie Vardy netted the reply for Leicester in the 72nd minute, and Dyche was pleased with the result which saw them win five Premier League games in a row for the first time in 50 years.
"It was a tough game. Leicester have had some ups and downs lately but they are still a very good side, an attacking side with the technical players that they've got," he added.
"But we made a very good, fast start and we took the game on which I was pleased with. We got ourselves in front but it's never comfortable when you're playing a good side.
"The second half turned into a really tough game for us where they threw caution to the wind and it was almost six across the front line but I thought we defended very well.
"We've worked hard here for some big historical markers - there's another one [the five games] - but the players deserve massive credit.
"We try to call things right and the second half was very tough for them, Leicester are a tough side to deal with so for different reasons, you have to find a way of winning. We know we can't just outplay everyone in this division, we have to find different ways of operating in order to win so overall, I am very pleased in that aspect."
