Burnley boss Dyche plays down former England boss's comments

The former Everton boss, who has managerial roles at Preston North End, Blackpool, Bolton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers penned on his CV, had been a studio guest on beIN SPORTS and inferred that the Clarets should put all of their eggs in one basket - the Premier League.

Allardyce, who guided the Trotters to the last 32 of the UEFA Cup in 2005/06, claimed that Dyche doesn't have the numbers at his disposal to juggle both competitions and believes that the club's European commitments would have a negative impact on their domestic form.

He had said: "Saying on-air and saying in public to get knocked out of the Europa League is not what you should do as a manager.

"But what he would say to this is, if you put the fact on the owners, and I don't think Sean's got the squad to cope.

"And when you haven't got the squad to cope, we saw it many years ago with George Burley at Ipswich when they got in Europe in their first season, and the next year they got relegated.

"When you're a smaller club getting into Europe your squad's going to find playing in the Premier League on Sunday a very difficult thing to achieve the result."

But Dyche responded with: "I’ve got great respect for people like Sam Allardyce for what he's done in the game, all his years of service and the competition's that he's been involved in.

"I understand his train of thought. I don’t think it’s anything negative about ourselves, I think he's just looking at the bigger picture, but we want to take on the challenge and we've been clear on that all along.

"It’s good for me as a manager, who's continuing to learn, and it's good for the group in terms of experience.

"You want to look back on your career and know that you've experienced as many things as possible."

Dyche added: "I think it's good from that side of things but I understand his train of thought because the Premier League is unforgiving.

"There is a demand from this (Europa League) - more with the travelling and the slight time change which alters your system and affects your body's way of preparing.

"That's the biggest thing so far. Squad depth is something that is well documented with our injuries and we were looking for more bodies in the market and that didn’t happen.

"We believe in the group that we've got and so far I've been happy with the performances in general. We now take on the next challenge."