Sean Dyche looking for 'a pizza the action' as Burnley return to the top flight

Ahead of a season notable for managerial talent, the 45-year-old Englishman aims to quietly keep his Cinderella club out of the relegation zone

Dyche will not be starstruck by big names in Turf Moor's away dugout (Getty)

They work hard on being taken seriously at Burnley, but the smallest town ever to boast a Premier League club, with the smallest budget, often find themselves fighting a losing battle.

In a Premier League dominated by billionaire foreign owners, celebrity managers from overseas and players who take six-figure weekly salaries for granted, Burnley -- preparing for their third appearance in the top flight since 2009 -- continue to find themselves portrayed as the unfashionable flip-side to the narrative of Guardiola and Conte, Pogba and Ibrahimovic. And pizza.

“I give them pizza with the rolls that have cheese and pepperoni in,” says manager Sean Dyche, in response to revelations that Pep Guardiola has taken pizza off the menu at Manchester City. “It’s good fuel I think. We’re going to brand ourselves pizza lovers.

“I’m being flippant, but I’m being serious as well, because that is the misconception.

“Gael Clichy was talking about how this new diet was amazing, saying we don’t to eat junk food at City, but we’ve been doing that since I got here -- I did it at Watford, too -- and so are other English managers.

“Here are the dieticians, this is what we do. We’ve sorted a chef out and he’s going to support the players, we’ve got the supplements and we’re going to have a fluid consultant in.

“But because I’m Sean Dyche, you wouldn’t be interested. It’s, ‘go on Pep, tell us about your pizzas.’”

Dyche is a rarity among Premier League managers. First off, he is English, which is becoming something of a novelty, but he has also survived relegation from the top division 12 months ago, when the Turf Moor board did not even consider the prospect of dismissing the 45-year-old simply because he had failed (narrowly) to keep the Cinderella club up.

Dyche survived and Burnley prospered, winning the Championship with 93 points last season to make an instant return to the big league.

But the former Chesterfield centre-half insists he does not lie awake at night with excitement at taking on the likes of Guardiola, Antonio Conte and Jurgen Klopp.

Burnley returned to the top flight at the first time of asking (Getty)

“I don’t judge myself against Pep Guardiola with what their squad is - it’s not a level playing field,” Dyche said.

“There’s that weird thing about pitting your wits against them, but I’m not really. If we had equal squads that’d be pitting my wits against them.

“It’s not interesting for me to go ‘oh look, there’s that famous manager, yeah he’s been doing this and that.’

“It never even crosses my mind. We just take the game on and see what it gets. Afterwards we’ll say hello and off we go. Simple as that.

“I can assure you, the schmoozing stuff is not something I over-think.

“I have total respect to the man stood next to me - some have done amazing things in the game - but I don’t think about it. It’s far from my thoughts.

I can assure you, the schmoozing stuff is not something I over-think.

&#13; <p>Sean Dyche</p>&#13;

“But I think we’re probably out there on our own in that we're that anomaly club.

“We’re quite singular in that sense. There will be no-one spending as little as we spend and if they aren’t spending it this year, they spent it the year before or the year before that, and we’ll have by far the lowest wage bill.

"But there’s a big belief in what we do and we will take it all on and just go out and see, because the only real truth in football is out there and on the training ground.

“The rest is opinion and fake. The bit I focus on and the players focus is out there.”

But with only one British manager, David Moyes, being appointed by a Premier League club this summer, does the ‘fake’ element of English football extend to the men being recruited to go up against the likes of Dyche, Moyes, Tony Pulis and Mark Hughes?

“A job comes up, usually the microphone goes around the stadium, and it’s who do you want?” Dyche said. “A foreign name is mentioned, and they go ‘oh yeah I’ve heard he’s a great tactician.’

“That’s usually the line and we watch it sat on the bus, wetting ourselves laughing. The fan outside has never heard of him.

“There’s a bit of that spin. There’s still a thirst from the populous for foreign managers and foreign players.

“They’re a bit more snazzy, let’s see what this Belgian manager or this Argentinean manager can do.

“It doesn’t matter to me personally. Mauricio Pochettino I think is fantastic, I really enjoy his company -- Arsene Wenger, personally, was very good with me, very good company with me.

“There’s no problem with me and foreign managers, but this is my view on it. Generally there is still this edge towards foreign coaches and managers.

“There is a thirst for foreign coaches, who are always tactical geniuses.

“Conte came in at Chelsea and he was commended for bringing a hard, fast, new leadership to Chelsea, which involved doing 800m runs, 400m runs and 200m runs.

“Come to my training and see Sean Dyche doing that and you’d say ‘dinosaur, a young English dinosaur manager, hasn't got a clue’. So is it perception or is it fact?

“Conte, I thought, was interesting because if you see us doing that you’d say we’re running them round in circles, at Chelsea under Conte everyone thinks it’s amazing, they’re working really hard, like it's incredible.

“Then you have the City players talking about the diet that Pep has brought in. He’s stopped pizza. He’s a genius already, in my view.

Conte has brought a strict trtaining regime to Chelsea (Getty)

“The year before, Claudio Ranieri was adding pizza at Leicester. Two geniuses, one adding pizza one taking it away.”

Ranieri’s success at Leicester last season has changed the Premier League landscape, with every club now asking themselves whether they can over-achieve -- perhaps not to the extent of winning the title, but exceeding traditional expectations.

For Dyche and Burnley, however, even Leicester’s success in winning the title has been misunderstood.

“It still often comes down to the strength of your squad,” Dyche said. “Leicester are a good example.

“(N’Golo) Kante was flippantly described as unbelievable for just £6million, but that’s a record signing here. And that’s Leicester at ‘it’s only £6million.’

“That’s where it’s gone, it’s hugely grown. It was an anomaly season last season, not to do Leicester down, it was amazing what they did last season, but the big boys weren’t quite the big boys.

“It’s fantastic that Leicester took total advantage of that, and that opens the mind a bit more, not remotely for me with Burnley saying we’re going to win the league, but it shows it’s not an exact situation where the big boys win it every year.

“There’s lots of different things for us to consider, but it still comes down to us taking care of ourselves.

“It gives a more open view when someone like Leicester does what they did.