MIRACLE WORKER DYCHE
Burnley boss turns heads as big clubs circle
LISTENING to Burnley manager Sean Dyche explain how he has overseen a run of only one defeat in 10 games was, at times, like hearing David Moyes describing key parts of his everton blueprint.
The main difference was between Dyche’s distinctive east Midlands rasp and Moyes’s gentler Dumbartonshire tones. That has surely not been lost on Bill Kenwright, the everton chairman who bleeds goodison Park blue and happens to have a vacancy.
But other worried chairmen may also be casting envious eyes towards Turf Moor and Dyche.
Dyche laughed when it was pointed out, but his team were outside the Champions League places only on goal difference on Saturday evening.
Many assume that Dyche would jump at the chance to move to a club such as everton, where the investment of Farhad Moshiri means that money is no longer as tight as in Moyes’s day. Dyche recalls Burnley being unable to afford £ 300,000 to sign James Tarkowski from oldham and having to buy him later from Brentford, paying ‘10 times more’.
But Dyche insists that spending large amounts of owners’ cash is not what motivates him.
‘You like to buy quality when you can get it, but a big thing for me is developing players,’ he said, reeling off a list of low-budget success stories, including Nick Pope, goalkeeper Tom Heaton’s effective understudy. The Burnley boss did not mention his match-winner, Sam Vokes, an example of Dyche’s developmental skills.
Loaned out by Wolves to six differ- ent clubs over three seasons, Vokes never reached double figures in games or goals for any of them, before settling at Burnley in July 2012. Saturday’s goal was his 52nd
in the league for the Clarets. Would Dyche’s methods suit a club with aspirations to play more stylish football than Burnley’s?
He maintains that he has played the way that brings the best out of the squad he has to work with — ‘Long ball, short ball, it’s about the right ball’ — and no team was ever made worse by being well-organised.
But the only way to find out what he could do would be for one of those clubs to hand him the reins.
Defender Maya Yoshida came closest to a goal for Southampton, which may explain why they have failed to score in nine of their last 12 home league games. With away fixtures against five of the top six to come, finding a way to win at St Mary’s has become even more urgent.
‘We have togetherness but have to change something,’ Yoshida said.