STEVEN Defour believes he is almost back to his best and hailed the influence Sean Dyche has had on his rejuvenation.

The Clarets midfielder insists he’s nearing the level he produced when he was one of Europe’s hottest properties at Standard Liege, attracting admiring glances from Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.

Injuries halted his progress and the 29-year-old has since had indifferent spells at Porto and Anderlecht, but he has excelled for the Clarets this season.

And the Belgian, who has not always been a first choice regular at Turf Moor, has thrived this term.

“This is one of those moments where I’m feeling like I was at Standard Liege, at my best,” Defour said when asked if Dyche was bringing out the best in him.

Defour was made Standard captain at 19, guiding the club to a first league title in 25 years and winning the award for the best player in Belgium.

He added: “I think I can still do better but for the moment it’s quite good and I hope I can progress with the team.”

The Clarets celebrated five years with Dyche at the helm on Monday with a 1-0 win over Newcastle and Defour said that what you see is what you get with the Turf Moor boss.

“He’s a very good manager. He’s very straightforward, you know you have to work and adapt to his style,” the Belgian said.

“Everybody is saying his training is the toughest and you have to adapt to that, when you do that you can show it on the pitch.

“Even the development of the new training ground. I saw some pictures of before and where they came from to where they are now is a big evolution.

“If you see now we are seventh, we stayed in the Premier League for the first time, so I hope we can continue being a stable Premier League team.

“After five years we can say Burnley made a massive evolution. We’re seventh in the Premier League now, after five years of his coaching it’s massive.”

Defour took time to adapt to the demands of the Premier League, and of Dyche he said: “He added a lot on the defensive side and I think he made me a real central midfielder in the Premier League who can play football and run around and defend.

“The gaffer has confidence in me and I try not to embarrass him.”

Defour’s evening against Newcastle was ended by a groin strain that makes him a doubt for Burnley’s final game before the international break against Southampton.

“He’s got a tight groin and we managed to get him off pretty quick,” boss Dyche added.

“We try and be as diligent with injuries as we can. We have ultimate trust in the players and if he’s saying he’s got a tight groin then he has to come off. They know their bodies and we want that kind of professionalism.

“It’s not easy for a player to do that but he’s old enough and wise enough to know the difference. He’s come off quickly and we hope that settles down. He’s a good player.”

Burnley had to show patience to break down the Magpies on Monday night and secure an anniversary victory, and Defour revealed that is something they’ve been working on on the training ground.

“It’s something we work in, even in training, to keep the ball a bit better, to be patient and go from one side to the other and maybe go back, it’s working better and better,” he said.

“It’s a massive three points, it’s two good games having a good start. It’s difficult because Newcastle had two lines of four and the space was out wide. We tried to get good crosses in, we had a lot of the final third but maybe that last pass was not always accurate.

“We stayed on the front foot, the gaffer said they concede a lot of goals in the second half so mentally it was important to go on and we got the goal.”