Away daze: why are Hull City and Burnley such poor travellers? | Paul Wilson

Hull City’s remarkable revival under Marco Silva means that with three points on Saturday afternoon they could catch up with Burnley, a club widely perceived to have enjoyed a good season after coming up from the Championship and staying clear of the relegation positions. Burnley need a win to move to 39 points and almost guaranteed safety, though no one in east Lancashire imagines this is going to be a pivotal weekend any more than they do on the east coast.

The reason is simple. Both teams are playing away, and between them they have the least impressive travelling form in the Premier League, worse even than the three sides beneath them in the drop zone. Burnley have yet to win away this season, their healthy points return based almost entirely on 10 wins and a couple of draws at Turf Moor. Hull have performed miracles under Silva since the turn of the year, including beating Watford with 10 men last week, but their only away win came at Swansea in August and since the new manager’s arrival they have picked up only a point away from home.

Neither Sean Dyche nor Silva can offer a plausible explanation for the stark difference in home and away form, though both managers continue to hope continued resilience at home will garner enough points to secure survival. “Our home form has been amazing,” Silva has said. “No one can explain why we cannot produce it when we travel to other grounds. We try to prepare for each match in exactly the same way and we have put in some good away performances. We just never seem to make it last for the whole 90 minutes.”

Dyche claims to be uninterested in the breakdown of points between home and away, and unconcerned if, as seems possible, Burnley go the whole season without winning away. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to win at Palace or Bournemouth but points on the board are all that matters because in the end that’s what we will be judged on,” he said. “The players haven’t got a mental block about winning away, they believe they can win anywhere, but believing it and actually making it happen are two different things. We have been so close on occasions – you won’t believe some of the things that have gone against us away from home – but on the other hand 10 Premier League wins at Turf Moor is something we can all be proud of.”

Fair enough but Burnley supporters know something else is true, a point Dyche may understandably be keen to gloss over. Some of those home wins have been close-run affairs too, games that could have gone either way until a lucky break or a late goal tilted the contest in the home side’s favour. There was Sam Vokes’s controversial late winner against Leicester, to name one example, or the last-minute Scott Arfield goal against Everton when only Tom Heaton had kept Burnley in the game and the midfielder had been fortunate not to pick up a second yellow card for a foul on Gareth Barry.

This is not to suggest that any of Burnley’s wins have been streaky or undeserved, just to observe they have not always dominated home games to the extent the league table suggests. As with Hull, it could simply be the case that as a promoted side they have found most games decided by narrow margins, but have utilised the extra confidence, determination and occasional refereeing decision in their favour that generally comes from playing in front of their own supporters.

“Look at the stats for promoted teams and their away form isn’t usually that impressive,” Dyche said. “A team fresh up is unlikely to have six or seven away wins, though you might expect one by now. I knew it would be tough because of the last time we were in the Premier League. You go from being something like a market leader in the Championship to losing more games than you win in the Premier League. The challenge for any promoted team is always the same: just to get over the line.

“The only question that will be asked on the last day of the season is whereabouts are you in the league. It doesn’t matter where the points have come from, it is whether you have enough to stay up. If we can stay up this season, we should be better for the experience next time and maybe for the next season we could be looking at how to move the club forward by winning away. But for now I’m not worried about the balance or the breakdown, I’m just happy with the points. I am aware we only have four points away from home this season but Leicester only have seven. Last year we weren’t even in this division and Leicester were champions. That’s how difficult the Premier League is.”

Good point, except that last season, when everyone felt Leicester were making the Premier League look easy, they managed a colossal 11 away wins. Perhaps more pertinently, in the previous season they recorded four, some of them at this stage as Nigel Pearson’s team left it late to climb the table. Crystal Palace, Burnley’s opponents on Saturday, have just done the same thing under Sam Allardyce, improving their survival outlook no end with improbable wins at Chelsea and Liverpool.

That sort of statement makes Burnley’s and Hull’s travel sickness look vapid and though neither can drop into trouble on Saturday because Swansea play on Sunday, the possibility of relegation rivals picking up vital away points should not be discounted. Although Paul Clement’s team act as an insurance policy for Burnley and Hull, should Swansea manage an improbable result at Old Trafford it would lead to everyone’s calculations being redrawn.