SEAN Dyche will go into Monday night’s game as the third longest serving manager in the Premier League.

But as he prepares to mark his five-year anniversary with the visit of Newcastle United he admits there was a time when he struggled to look beyond his first half-season after a tough bedding in period in East Lancashire in which he needed to sway fans’ opinion.

Two promotions and a top flight survival later, Dyche is regarded as one of the greatest managers in the club’s long and proud history, alongside English championship winner Harry Potts.

And he has credited the Clarets board for seeing through the results in a sticky spell that – after opening with back-to-back wins – brought just one victory from the next eight games in the 2012-13 season, and believing that he would turn it around.

“Before I got here I don’t think there was a big buy-in (from supporters),” said Dyche. “It’s not that they didn’t want me here - that’s probably too strong - but they wanted maybe other people more than me. That’s probably a better way of putting it.

“I think at the time it was Olly (Ian Holloway) and Mick (McCarthy), so I wasn’t the people’s champion.

“You’ve got to win them over, you try and be honest in the media, which I was, and you have to do good work.

“Something that was really clear to me was, behind the results, I knew there was good work being done, but equally you need to win.

“We had a really tough spell, we started well, but had a real tough run, which can happen.

“We arrested it at Charlton with a worldy from Charlie Austin, and then we had a weird end to the season when everyone was looking over their shoulder when the points were really high.

“You know you’ve got to get results, while doing the work for the benefit of the long-term. You can’t lose sight of either or you’re in trouble. It’s way tougher than people think.

“Fans don’t know all the work that goes on behind the scenes, there’s still the thought that you roll ‘em out twice a week and that’s it.

“Not all the work, planning, analysis, sports science, rest, recuperation, diet, everything we put in.

“But there was a lot going on in those months, to that summer, and it was good work going on, but you’re only judged on results.

“For me, longevity is bringing the other stuff into line, then the results will come, but you have to get enough results to make it work.”

Looking back on his introduction to Turf Moor life, Dyche is grateful that the board, with Mike Garlick and John Banaszkiewicz then forming a joint chairmanship, could see the bigger picture.

“They just let me get on with it,” he said.

“They might have privately had conversations about what they thought, but, massive credit to the board for never getting involved in the football - ‘why are you doing this, why are you doing that?’ Never.

“They would say ‘what are you doing?’ And I’d say, this and that, and they’d say, ‘okay’.

“It’s not easy when they’re wondering and questioning, but a lot of different parties stayed strong when there were question marks.

“If I’d had 10 years at it, people say ‘he’ll sort it out. He’s had 10 years doing it’, but I’d only had a season.”

Dyche had been out of work after a change of ownership at Watford brought an end to his first managerial role.

It is perceived that such is the level of success he has engineered and enjoyed with Burnley, he has a job for life at Turf Moor.

But the 46-year-old insists he would never slip into such a complacent mindset.

“It’s impossible to be in a comfort zone,” he said. “Even now people say ‘you can be here for as long as you want’. That’s not the case at all because people here will change their opinion very quickly if results go against you, for whatever reason, there’s no reality in the business – you could have five injuries to key personnel, no-one cares. All it does is extend your results timeline.

“People have faith in you over a long period, when people have faith in you they extend that period. But there still will come a time when people say ‘I want them out’.

“I’m not afraid of it, I get it. The good thing about being sacked is that you don’t’ fear it. The first time you think ‘that’s not good’. You wake up the next day your kids are still there, and your missus.

“Life still goes on. I know where the game lives in my life and it’s nowhere near as important as them.”

With links to the vacant managerial position at Everton, is there a temptation to want to make his next move on his own terms?

“No,” he said. “That doesn’t come into my thinking.”