When Everton sacked Ronald Koeman on 23 October Sean Dyche was instantly cited among the favourites to replace him at Goodison Park. A month later the club are still without a permanent manager yet the speculation surrounding Dyche’s future has not proved a distraction. Burnley are up to seventh in the Premier League, four points ahead of eighth-placed Watford at the start of the weekend, and on Sunday face an Arsenal side who are ahead only on goal difference.
Twenty-two points after 12 matches is a fine return. Dyche’s side have just recorded three consecutive victories – a club record in the Premier League – and if it appears curious to some that Everton appear to have decided against Dyche, Burnley will hardly care. His ability to maintain focus and reel off those three wins on the bounce shows a key attribute: the level of control he commands over Burnley.
This is a 46-year-old whose managerial modus operandi is to eschew being merely a head coach. Dyche runs the club from top to bottom and has “a handle on everything”, according to Malky Mackay, who gave Dyche a first senior position at Watford in 2009. “I know the directors at Burnley, they’re good people. They’ve been good for him and he’s been good for them, in terms of how he’s shaped the club,‚“ says Mackay, currently the Scotland caretaker manager and performance director at the Scottish FA. “Sean’s allowed to be in on everything that’s done at Burnley. That can be seen in the beautiful training ground [after a £10.5m summer revamp], the handle he’s got from youth team to first team, the recruitment.”
Dyche was the under-18s coach at Vicarage Road when Mackay promoted him to assistant manager, first during a temporary spell of five games in 2008, then permanently following Brendan Rodgers’s departure 12 months later. Mackay says: “What I got was complete honesty, loyalty, strength. He had similar values and standards of how the team should act and work, given what we had at Watford and the division we were in. In the office we could say anything to each other.”
Dyche has won admiration for how he has built Burnley, through what he describes as the kind of incremental advances that do not carry any risk. After replacing Eddie Howe in October 2012, Dyche claimed promotion the following season, despite the modest funds available. The disappointment of relegation to the Championship after a term was followed by Dyche guiding Burnley straight back to the top division.
This time he kept the Clarets up, finishing 16th, and Mackay points to Dyche’s experiences at Watford as a vital. “We were under the cosh, the club was up for sale, half an hour from administration [in late 2009], and it was really academy products, low-league diamonds and X-factor loan players that we were able to deal with,” he says.
Andre Gray, now at Watford, and James Tarkowski are two examples of Dyche’s eye for potential. Both players were signed from Brentford. Gray joined in August 2015, ended that season as Golden Boot winner with 25 goals, and flowered in his debut Premier League campaign, scoring a hat-trick against Sunderland. Tarkowski was signed in February 2016, has captained Burnley, and is first choice in central defence following Michael Keane’s move to Everton.
As a player Dyche, who was born in Kettering, learned much from at his first club, Nottingham Forest, from Brian Clough despite not making a first-team appearance. Dyche forged a successful lower-league career at Chesterfield, whom he joined from Forest in 1990, captaining the Spireites to the 1997 FA Cup semi-finals. They eventually lost 3-0 in a replay but Dyche scored a penalty that gave them a 2-0 lead against Middlesbrough in the original game, which ended in a controversial 3-3 draw.
Dyche, whose gruff voice adds to his considerable presence, made a lasting impression on a 16-year-old Kevin Davies when he signed in 1993. “I remember as a young kid turning up to the first few training sessions and Sean could be quite intimidating. He kept me grounded, was one of the major influences in the dressing room,” says Davies. “He’s loud, ballsy, that’s the way he was as a team-mate, the way he played, the way he manages. I enjoyed playing against him, having battles on the training ground.”
Davies took a first managerial role at Southport in mid-October and Dyche, who remains a friend, offered advice. “He returned my call within a few minutes,” Davies says. “He was very ambitious and determined as a player – all the qualities you need in a leader. Like when he stepped up to take the penalty in the semi-final, more than happy to stand up and be counted. He had those qualities ingrained in him by the likes of Cloughy, who was a big influence. He’s also a proper human being as well, with morals. He’s old-school in his ways but uses all science and technology as well so I don’t think it’s any surprise to see him doing so well. When I spoke to him recently about his journey he [said] he had a desire to learn under managers and improve himself, put in all the hard graft.”
Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat of Tottenham in last week’s north London derby was one of their better recent displays. Yet Wenger treats Dyche’s Burnley with respect. Since Burnley’s season-opening 3-2 defeat of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Dyche has overseen 1-1 draws at Tottenham and Liverpool, before a 1-0 win at Everton, which may have aided Koeman’s downfall. Davies says: “When I spoke to him he said he was really enjoying it, upsetting the big boys.”
Dyche left Chesterfield in the summer after that semi-final and over the next decade played for Bristol City, Luton, Millwall, Watford and Northampton. He then went back to Watford as a youth coach and his first managerial post came as Mackay’s successor at Vicarage Road in the summer of 2011. Despite leading the Hornets to 11th in the Championship in 2011-12, their highest position in four years, he was sacked by the new owners, the Pozzo family, who recruited their Italian compatriot Gianfranco Zola.
Chris Iwelumo, who joined Watford at the start of Dyche’s season as manager, says: “I’ve done my coaching badges and they say about management, it’s 80% man-management and Sean has that. He is a great character, a good presence, has a good aura around him. He treats everyone with respect. He was the same as a player – the kind close to the kit man – so expects that from his players, too.
“His attention to detail is second to none. He [analyses] the opposition and brings that info – strengths, weaknesses, where they can be hurt, their gameplan, how they set themselves up – to the team. How they played against Everton was outstanding: counterattack football. The goal [by Jeff Hendrick] itself was 24 passes, nine outfield players, it was ridiculous, just so composed. And, the game-plan went to perfection.”
Now, any homegrown managerial hopeful will hope to imitate the Englishman’s career trajectory. “Talking abut the next England manager, who is it going to be: I think someone like Dychey, if he keeps going – why not? He ticks every box for me,” says Iwelumo.
Mackay adds: “When you have a club that think they have a manager who has a sense of strategy and commitment and allow him a chance to be involved you do have the ability for a club to punch above their weight.”
This is precisely what Dyche is doing at Burnley, as Arsenal may discover to their cost on Sunday .
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