Ashley Westwood hailed Burnley’s “phenomenal” form after Saturday’s victory at Bournemouth eased their relegation fears.
The 3-1 win – secured after goals from Chris Wood, Westwood and Ashley Barnes followed the latter’s fourth-minute own goal – took them eight points clear of the bottom three.
They have claimed 24 points from 14 matches since the 5-1 Boxing Day defeat by Everton, which followed a troubling few months in which they won only three times.
Westwood’s influence was crucial at Bournemouth when they produced one of their finest displays of the Premier League campaign.
The 29-year-old told his club’s official website: “The points return we’ve had since Christmas is phenomenal.
“It wasn’t the start to the season we wanted. But everyone sticks together. It’s a great bunch of lads and it’s starting to come through now.
“We are in good spirits. It’s in our hands and that’s the way we wanted it.
“The character to come here and do that to them just shows what a great side we’ve got.
“The character we have got here, and the training is bang-on every day, and that stands you in good stead.
“When we are like that, teams can’t live with us. When we’re on it we can match anyone and that’s what we need to do week-in, week-out.”
Discussing his first goal in three years, he added: “It fell nice. I didn’t really have to think and slotted it away.
“I was peeling off before it went in. The way I struck it I knew it was going in.”
Their latest defeat means that Bournemouth have won just one of their past nine fixtures and have slid to 13th.
They played with little direction and confidence after being gifted the lead by Barnes’ own goal.
Cherries manager Eddie Howe said: “We will always credit the opposition, but we did not deal well with Burnley’s threats and we didn’t deal with them well enough.
“We had enough chances to score more than one goal and that’s a huge frustration for us, but the biggest disappointment is that we didn’t turn the screw in the second half.
“We weren’t able to build pressure and that didn’t really come which is the biggest disappointment.”
