Dyche has to switch his curry night for Europe

NOBODY said the Europa League would be easy for Sean Dyche this season but one unexpected casualty of Burnley’s first European campaign in moe than half a century has been the loss of his beloved curry night.

The Clarets manager, who faces Watford at Turf Moor today after advancing in Europe this week, had established a tradition with his coaching staff of a Thursday night dinner date.

That has been lost, after four successive footballing Thursdays in which Burnley beat Aberdeen and Istanbul Basaksehir to set up a final qualifying tie with Olympiakos. Victory will put the Lancashire club — in Europe for the first time since 1966-67 — in the Europa League group stage.

Dyche (below) said: ‘We normally go for dinner, a couple of pints or a glass of wine, but it’s different now. Wednesday is the new Thursday!

‘I’m pleased to say we weren’t doing that this week. But that’s all part of what we’re doing here now, we’ve got a little routine going on.

‘Obviously, we’re football-obsessed and Burnley-obsessed and we usually end up talking about formations and team changes, particularly with all these games coming up. It’s a bit of downtime for us.

‘But we will gladly sacrifice our couple of pints and a curry on a Thursday night to be in this competition.’

Meanwhile Watford boss Javi Gracia hopes to earn a new deal by becoming a club legend and winning the first major trophy in the club’s history.

The Spaniard is out of contract at the end of the season and knows just standing still will not satisfy a club that has ambitions of emulating the 2015-16 Premier League champions Leicester and challenging for trophies on all fronts.

Gracia said: ‘I feel now we have a squad where we [are strong enough] to play in all of the competitions with the possibility of winning them.’