Dunk: We don't want European push to be flash in the pan

Skipper proud of league position but insists he wants the club to maintain their place further up the table for years to come.

Charlie Hanson

2023-05-08T06:00:00Z

Lewis Dunk certainly enjoyed Alexis Mac Allister's winning penalty against Manchester United last week.

Lewis Dunk doesn’t want our push for European football this season to be a one off.

The club captain admitted that he could never have believed when we were first promoted that the club could be in this position one day, but now we are, he is enjoying every second.

“Hopefully it’s not once in a lifetime, hopefully we can be fighting for these positions next year. It’s a great time, I’ve been on a journey with the club and to be fighting for Europe with six games to go, if you’d told me that when we were first promoted I would have probably laughed at you.

“Now it’s a reality, I am enjoying every moment of leading the boys out and keeping positive and fighting for everything. How could I not enjoy what we’re doing right now?

“When we first came into the Premier League, we would turn up to those games against the ‘big six’ hoping to win, which is the reality for a promoted side. It’s tough and it took a long time to beat a top side. But we’re in a different place as a squad and a club. We’re confident against anyone and we believe we can beat anyone on our day.”

Our success this season has in part been thanks to a number of players who when they first joined were little known outside of their homelands.

The likes of Alexis Mac Allister from Argentinos Juniors and Moises Caicedo from Independiente del Valle have proven to be shrewd bits of business, while we’ve also seen the emergence of Julio Enciso and Facundo Buonanotte more recently.

Dunk has been impressed by the way the club has recruited, while he added that they, as well as the rest of the team, are able to thrive because of how well the team are working under Roberto De Zerbi.

“It's a credit to the club for bringing those youngsters in from nowhere. When they come in I feel bad as I don’t even know where they’ve come from!

“But then you see them in their first training session and you understand why they are there. The way this head coach works, every player knows their position on the pitch – I could be playing at number ten for Roberto because I know what I would need to do, I wouldn’t do a very good job!

“But I would know what I am supposed to be doing. It’s the way we work, everyone wants to learn and everyone is eager to do so, even the senior players are. We’ve got a great group who wants to learn from this head coach.”