My time in charge isn't set in stone - Burnley boss Dyche

Clarets boss Sean Dyche accepts his time in charge at Turf Moor isn't 'set in stone'.
Sean DycheSean Dyche
Sean Dyche

And he understands there will he a growing want for change if results don’t improve.

Burnley sit 18th in the Premier League with 12 points, having only won three of their 19 games to date.

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West Ham are next up at Turf Moor, on the back of three successive away wins, and beat the Clarets 4-2 at the London Stadium last month.

Dyche needs a win from somewhere, and while he can list a string of major achievements with the club - two promotions, a highest league finish in 44 years, and a return to European competition after 51 years - he knows patience can eventually run out in football.

He said: “I think there is a bit of reality from the outside, people looking in, but don’t for one minute think I think I’m set in stone here.

“I’m not, eventually people want change. I’ve said it for years here, eventually they will want change, for good or bad reasons.

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“Either I go somewhere else for the reason we’ve been very successful, or we haven’t, and my position changes.

“The thing is, probably, I suppose, it’s not something that concerns me, I know the work we put in here, and I’m quite pleased, not with results, but the general work, the amount of work my staff and I put in, and the players.

“If people do question it, that’s the way it goes. They question it on results, not on workload.

“That’s a reality. Eventually, if we don’t address the results business we’re in, eventually people will want change. That’s just the way it is.

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“I’ve been through that before at my previous club, there’s certainly no worry about it, I just get on with my business.

“I know my business, how it works, the good and bad of it, so I think I have clarity in what the situation is.”

There has been no mass audible dissent at games, although social media has seen fans vent their frustration.

Dyche added: “I think the fans have been patient, they have been excellent actually, they know the journey of the club.

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“We’ve got probably 12,000 who were here when I got here and have seen it radically change in six or so years.

“A few have come along the way, who have seen, probably, only successful periods.

“So maybe they are looking at the whole bigger picture, I don’t know.

“But I totally understand when they do get frustrated. We’re in a results business, and sometimes we’ve had results go against us when we’ve played well and the fans recognise that, and sometimes we haven’t played as well and the recognise that.

“Rightly so.

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“There’s no sympathy, there’s no excuses. There are some challenges, but they’ve always been there.

“Now we’ve got to make sense of them and still get results.

“Simple as that.

“I don’t think it’s a forever thing, eventually people go ‘hang on, we’ve got to change something’.

“If that day comes, that’s the way it goes.

“All I know is, there’s a reality to the bigger picture of what’s gone on here, that’s inside as well.

“I think the chairman understands the challenges and where’s it’s at, but, of course, he wants us to be winning and not in the position we are, like we all do.”

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People can suggest expectations have been raised, or Dyche is a victim of his success, but he wouldn’t change anything: “You raise the bar, probably against the odds, and we did out perform the market last year, statistically and in the league table.

“You wouldn’t want fans to know all the minutiae and background, it changes the feel of a stadium too far, you want the. To have enough education to understand it, but you don’t want to change it so far, that emotional response comes into it.

“I wouldn’t have changed any of it, many historical markers chiselled in stone, that’s an amazing thing, but it passes quickly.

“I’ve always said, when people have asked are you enjoying these amazing times? I said ‘not now, maybe in 15 years with a glass of wine.

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“But it’s so fresh and new, my only challenge is the next game, to correct the first part of the season by doing better in the second part.

“You asked me about credit in the bank, it’s all gone, the next challenge is the next game, it’s not ‘hasn’t it been marvellous?’ Yes it has, but it’s all been parked.

“The first time we got promoted, I made my son’s bed the next day, I wasn’t rattling around with the champagne.

“Now we’ve got to remodel it and move it forward again.”