BURNLEY boss Sean Dyche believes his side have been one of the surprise packages of the Premier League season.

The Clarets head into the final international break of the campaign in 13th place in the top flight, with an eight-point gap to the bottom three, despite not winning away this season.

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And although survival remains the priority Dyche admits Burnley are daring to look up the table as well as they prepare for the final nine games of the Premier League season.

"People keep talking about that 'clear' idea, and I understand why, but we're always on the knife edge of daring to look up the way," said the Clarets chief.

"I don’t think we're the real deal, there's a lot of work we have to do, and we have to continue to go hard, but at the beginning of the season, I think our fans, the media, would have been surprised to see where we are.

"Despite our away record, we've given a good show of ourselves, but it's only so far."

The international break signals the end of a run of four successive away games for Burnley.

The switching of their early season encounter with Liverpool from an Anfield that was still being redeveloped to Turf Moor meant Dyche's side were always going to face a gruelling run at this stage of the season.

They took two points from the game at Hull, Swansea, Liverpool and Sunderland, but Dyche felt they could easily have taken more.

"We knew at the beginning of the season when the Liverpool game got reversed, we'd have this tough run, a lots been made of it, and we've taken two points and probably deserved more," he said.

"We were a little aggrieved not to get what would have been a very strong point at Swansea, and I thought we deserved more at Anfield."

After 1,035 miles of travelling over the past month Burnley return to the comforts of Turf Moor after the international break, where they face Tottenham on Saturday, April 1 and Stoke four days later.

Burnley have won nine time in the league in front of their own fans this season and Dyche is looking forward to getting back home.

"We now have five of nine games at home, which doesn't guarantee anything, but statistically we've shown sides have to go hard to beat us," he said.

"We're looking forward to returning to Turf, and to the away games, we just need that rub of the green."

Steven Defour hasn't been called up by Belgium and will spend time at Gawthorpe looking to build his fitness in the hope of making his first-team return from a hamstring injury.

The 28-year-old has featured for the development squad but he hasn't played competitively since January 31, but Johann Berg Gudmundsson continues to struggle with a knee problem having seen a specialist last week.

"I don't know, we'll have to wait and see, it's not settled down as well as we've hoped," Dyche said of the Iceland man's knee injury.

"Obviously Steven can get some more work in, and a longer period to get him stronger."