BURNLEY’S 1-0 victory over Hull on Saturday continued their turnaround in results against their promotion rivals.

At the halfway point of the season, which was marked by the Clarets 3-0 defeat at Hull on Boxing Day, Burnley had beaten top half teams just twice, and their only victory against a fellow top six side was the 3-1 home success over Sheffield Wednesday.

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But since that defeat to the Tigers, Burnley are seven unbeaten in the league. A run that includes a fine away win at top half side Brentford plus victories over top two rivals Derby and Hull.

It has moved the Clarets to within a point of the Championship summit and the turnaround is shown in the numbers. Having averaged 1.09 points per game against top half teams in the first 23 games of the season, Sean Dyche’s side are averaging 2.2 points per game against the top 12 since then.

The Clarets chief said he always had belief that his side would find form after a run of just one win in eight games ahead of their defeat at Hull.

“I don’t think it’s down to any one thing. It can be down to a number of different things,” said Dyche.

“Changes to the side, adding to the belief that was there anyway, the fine margins in games, an even run of decisions from officials.

“It’s difficult to pinpoint one thing that has made the difference. If it was that easy everyone would pinpoint it and make the changes and get the results.

“There’s a number of deciding factors.

“One is we were going along strongly in terms of performance anyway.

“We felt it was a matter of time before we started winning games and we’ve done that recently.”

A run of seven points from the games against Derby, Sheffield Wednesday and Hull has moved Burnley to second in a mini-league of top six clubs.

They’ve taken 12 points from eight games against the rest of the top six, behind only Middlesbrough who have 16 points from seven games.

Hull and Derby both have seven points from games against the rest, while Brighton have six and Sheffield Wednesday, who haven’t beaten any of the teams above them so far this season, have four.