Sean Dyche is often labelled by fans as a ‘long ball manager’ who coaches his teams to hoof it up the pitch every ten seconds in some sort of anti-football hodgepodge of boringness.
Truth be told, there is a seed of truth at the source of those stereotypes because we’d be lying to ourselves if we didn’t say that his Burnley team played a tightly organised and pragmatic brand of football that wasn’t always entertaining and inspiring to watch.
However, taking that fact and running with it has led to some unfair presumptions about Dyche that are frankly disrespected to one of the most underrated Premier League managers of the last 10 years.
Not only did Dyche manage to keep the Clarets in the top-flight for six years, but he astonishingly raised the club as high as a seventh-place finish in the 2017/18 season that propelled them into Europa League football.
And while Burnley did eventually lose momentum under their long-serving manager on the way to relegation last season, there were countless memorable results that highlighted his ability to grind out brilliant results against the odds.
Yes, Burnley picked up a lot of points against mid-table opposition at Turf Moor, but Dyche was also able to snatch wins on the road at ‘big six’ clubs as part of away days that the club’s fans will never forget.
In fact, Dyche has put one such game under the microscope this week with The Coaches’ Voice as he provided a fascinating tactical analysis on Burnley’s 1-0 win at Anfield in January 2021.
Now, beating Liverpool in their own backyard just months after they won their first ever Premier League title is impressive enough, but the result was all the more remarkable for the fact that it ended the Reds’ epic unbeaten run at home.
When the
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Premier League
Burnley
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Chris Wood
Jurgen Klopp
James Tarkowski
Sean Dyche
Ashley Barnes