Burnley manager Sean Dyche has defended Danny Drinkwater after the midfielder was involved in an incident outside of a Manchester nightclub.
The altercation left the 29-year-old with cuts and bruises to his face and an ankle injury that is set to sideline the former Leicester player for weeks.
“They [footballers] are actually human beings,” Dyche said. ”They do have private lives – which sometimes are not private, obviously – and sometimes they get in scrapes.
“He’s certainly old enough and wise enough to know you do whatever you can to not get in scrapes, but sometimes it happens.”
Dyche would not reveal whether or not Burnley have imposed a punishment on Drinkwater, who won the English Premier League with Leicester in 2016 and joined the Clarets on loan from Chelsea this summer.
“It’s been more that sort of situation, have a chat with him and say: ‘What happened first of all, what was the situation that led to it? Okay, let’s move away from that, now where to do we go from here?’ So I think that’s where we’re at.”
It is not the first off-the-pitch issue that Drinkwater has experienced this year – he pleaded guilty to a drink-driving charge in May.
“You can’t just talk about development when it’s good news, you also have to work with players if things are not quite as good,” Dyche said.
The Burnley boss, who previously worked with Drinkwater at Watford, insisted he would not hold the incident against the midfielder.
“I’m not too worried about things in the past, we try and look for the things that we can sort out for the future.
“This is just a bump in the situation. We want to make sure he gets back to being fully fit, playing well, the eye of the tiger that it takes to be a top player.
“He wants to be back there playing well. He’s had a tough couple of years football-wise, not playing much. He wants the hunger and desire to flood back into him, and you have to earn that.”
