Sean Dyche believes English managers are unfairly maligned by comparison to their foreign counterparts and claims he would have been branded a “dinosaur” and “clueless” for employing some of the same methods as overseas coaches in the Premier League.
The Burnley manager pinpointed the flattering appraisal of the changes introduced by Antonio Conte and Pep Guardiola at Chelsea and Manchester City respectively this summer as fresh evidence of how foreign coaches are lauded as innovators while their English peers can be looked down upon for a similar approach.
Dyche was eager to stress that he had “no problem” with foreign managers in English football and hailed some of their “amazing” achievements but his remarks echo past complaints by Sam Allardyce, the new England manager, who once claimed he would have been given a job at a top four club if his surname was “Allardici”.
“There is a thirst for foreign coaches who are always tactical geniuses,” Dyche said. “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 Argentine manager can do.
“It seems to me it’s still there, it has been for a number of years, and I don’t think it’s radically changing.
“Antonio Conte came in at Chelsea and he got commended for bringing a hard, fast, new leadership to Chelsea, which involved doing 800-metre 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? I have no problem with it. It’s the reality I say. Perception is radically different to what is going on with young English managers.
“Conte I thought was interesting because if you saw 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.”
Dyche, whose Burnley team face Swansea City in their first game back in the Premier League on Saturday, also referenced Guardiola’s ban on pizza at the Etihad Stadium.
“I just saw [Gaël] Clichy [the City defender] talking about the diet that Pep has brought in – he’s stopped pizza, he’s a genius already in my view,” he said, light-heartedly.
“The year before [Claudio] Ranieri [the Leicester City manager] was adding pizza. Two geniuses – one adding pizza, one taking it away.
“I’m being flippant but I’m being serious as well. That is the misperception. Clichy was talking about how this new diet was amazing, saying, ‘We don’t eat junk food’. “We’ve been doing that since I got here [at Burnley]. I did it at Watford, 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 you, 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 believes the differing reaction to foreign managers who play 4-4-2 compared to English ones is another case in point.
“They questioned me for playing a 4-4-2 and then everyone played it last year and it was ‘amazing Ranieri, tactical genius’,” Dyche said.
“[Jürgen] Klopp came in [at Liverpool] and played a sort of 4-4-2 and let’s run really hard and press, people thought it was incredible. Wasn’t Sean Dyche doing that three years ago when he got here?
“It doesn’t matter to me personally. I think [Mauricio] Pochettino [at Tottenham Hotspur] is fantastic. I really enjoy his company. [Arsène] Wenger [at Arsenal], personally, was very good 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.
“Why do you buy a branded pair of jeans rather than the other pair? Because you think they’re better, but they might not be. I think there’s a bit of that, sometimes it’s just a bigger name is a bigger name.”
