TIME FOR DYCHE AND BURNLEY TO SPLITUP
DURING a difficult week for Burnley and Sean Dyche, I recalled something he said in May.
Speaking to the broadcaster Eamonn Holmes, Dyche was asked about his future.
‘It’s a question of how far you can keep the journey going,’ Dyche said.
‘ Where can it go? If the opportunity to come to somewhere that I thought would really enhance my chances as a manager, who knows?’
It was common sense but also unusual. Dyche is constantly asked that question but usually responds the way Geoff Boycott played cricket.
So I wondered back then whether such candour indicated a shift in his thinking about the future. It would now appear it did.
The 49-year-old’s decision last week to talk publicly about dissatisfaction with his club’s policy on player contracts felt a little like a shift, and maybe even a ploy. So did his move to leave his substitutes bench at Manchester City short of numbers.
Granted, Burnley have injuries but among Dyche’s seven subs — you are allowed nine these days — were two goalkeepers. Two goalkeepers? Really?
So if Dyche was making a point it was heard all around the Premier League. He is not happy and now we know.
For context, managers go through these ups and downs with their clubs all the time. No manager is ever totally content. They always want a little more. More money, more players, more freedom, more power. They push constantly at the boundaries.
But most of this stuff is left to simmer beneath the surface. Most issues get sorted or get replaced by something more important.
That Dyche has decided to publicise this feels significant. Sometimes in any relationship, one party starts to feel unsettled and, consciously or otherwise, starts to light fires. It’s a way of bringing things to a head.
Jose Mourinho used to do it all the time and it feels like Dyche is doing it here. If he is beginning to look for an out then who can really blame him?
Dyche probably reached his zenith at Turf Moor when he took Burnley in to the Europa League two seasons ago. That was earned by a seventh-place finish in the Premier League in 2018, an extraordinary achievement at a club with a smaller budget than many in the Championship.
I wondered back then what more there was for Dyche to achieve at Burnley. Win a domestic cup? Maybe, but there are only two of those handed out each year and you can wait a long time.
It’s true that managers can stay somewhere too long and the perception of Dyche is already skewed by the kind of football his team play.
Fellow managers see the depth and intelligence of his coaching. For example, Pep Guardiola is a fan. But others in the game — those who run clubs in some cases — are not as enlightened. They see Burnley’s football as rudimentary and physical. They wonder if this is all Dyche can bring.
It’s rubbish, but it lingers. For example, when he was chosen as a pundit for BBC 5 Live’s Champions League final coverage in Madrid last year, it was mentioned to me by at least two people in football that they may have chosen ‘someone from a big club’.
This is still the way football works and with that in mind, maybe it is time for Dyche to break out. He has been at Burnley almost eight years. Most of that time has been spent in the Premier League and his success with his team has enabled the club to build a new training ground.
Dyche is ambitious and knows his worth. He has made it quite clear now that he is not welded to Burnley for life and it’s understandable.
What else can he do there other than present a slightly different version of what he has presented before? As he said himself to Holmes last month: ‘ Where can it go?’