SEAN Dyche has reassured Burnley fans that Danny Ings is working hard to keep the Clarets in the Premier League.

The striker, who is out of contract this summer, is enduring his longest goal drought for two seasons having gone nine games without scoring.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Ings vowed to stay this season and help keep Burnley up, after his 21-Championship goals played a significant part in the Clarets winning promotion last term.

However, since the end of the January transfer window he has been accused of taking his eye off the ball.

In February he flew to Spain for talks with David Moyes at Real Sociedad, while on the morning of last weekend’s 1-0 defeat at Everton he was featured in a national newspaper talking about his future, which alluded to being away from Turf Moor.

But Dyche says Ings has not broken any rules, and insists he has not had reason to question his commitment to the current cause.

“Every player has a freedom to express themselves and he has expressed himself. I have no problem with that whatsoever. It’s modern football,” said the Burnley boss.

“Everyone was talking the other week about seeing him on a plane going elsewhere.

“That’s within the rules. There’s no skullduggery. You could flip that and say it’s just being honest.”

The last of Ings’ nine goals so far came in the 3-1 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford on February 11, where he delivered arguably his last best performance.

But Dyche said the England Under-21 international’s ongoing mission to hit double figures domestically is not for the want of trying, and he draws encouragement from that.

“He a young man who is working hard,” the manager said.

“He’s working hard in training, working hard to play and working hard to be in the Premier League.

“That’s all that you can ask, that they work hard.

“You can’t guarantee anything else other than they are in a positive environment, they are ready to play and ready to work - not just to work hard but to work smart.”

Ings missed a free header late in the game at Goodison Park last weekend, while there was a chance to score the winner against Tottenham when clean through earlier this month.

But Dyche stressed the importance of Ings continuing to keep putting himself in goalscoring positions.

“The main thing with strikers is being in there,” he said.

“It sounds a strange thing but be in there to miss, not just to score.

“You’ve got to be brave enough as a striker to be in there to miss, because some are not.

“Some strikers, if they’re not on form, they disappear and they just can’t quite get in there.

“They just don’t end up in the box.

“He’s still getting in there, that’s the key thing. I tell the strikers all the time to keep going into the box.

“I was a centre half and I know how it felt when a striker just keeps on going into the box, non-stop, and eventually one comes your way.”

But Dyche said the need for goals was not the sole responsibility of Ings, and admitted they had been working as a team to solve their problems in the final third.

“They’re a group that give a lot towards performances,” he said.

“There’s more detail in the performances. I think we have to detail down in the top third in the pitch of course. The players know that, we know that, because you’ve got to score more goals. That bit’s not rocket science but it’s not so easy to do.

“We’ve been looking at the players and how they play, different ways of making chances, different ways of creating an even better quality of chance because we have been making chances. It’s how many of the best quality you can (you create) in order to score goals.

“There are so many tight matches where everything counts. One thing we’ve certainly learnt is how tight the margins are in most games. It’s getting on the right side of them.”