Burnley boss Sean Dyche wants his players to be smiles better

And Sean Dyche has joked recently about the likes of Dwight McNeil, Matej Vydra and Johann Berg Gudmundsson needing to play more with a smile.

Dyche is looking for his players to play with that freedom, to release the shackles, and enjoy their football, although he admits, in the pressure cooker of the Premier League, that isn’t as simple as it sounds at times.

Dyche said, in jest, back in November of McNeil: “I told him I'd kick him somewhere if he didn't smile more”.

And after McNeil scored and claimed an assist in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Bournemouth, Dyche added: “I warned him again he wasn't smiling enough, brilliant bit of coaching to say 'smile more' - I don't know where that lives in the tactical and technical plan, but it seemed to work.”

McNeil is in line to make his 50th Premier League appearance at Newcastle United on Saturday, having made 46 starts.

And Dyche said: “I don’t think it is easy (to play with a smile), because there’s a professional knife edge a player sits on, of success and failure, before you play.

“But you’ve got to remember, it’s a professional glow, I don’t mean it’s laughing all the way, but there’s a period in your career, hopefully for most of your career, but it’s a kind of feel good factor about being a footballer.

“It’s that kind of smiling, it’s not literal, it’s that freedom that should come with being there - players have worked all their lives to be a footballer, so then you’ve got to realise the stress and anxiety, and balance of the joy and fun of it have to come together, and you have to win that battle.

“As a player, you’ve got to win the knife edge battle.

“The elite, super elite - the likes of Ronaldo - the reason they keep going is because they win it all the time, their belief system is so high, they probably don’t sit on that knife edge.

“Most players do, it’s probably 70/30 in their world, 70% says ‘I’m going to be the top man’, 30% have left that way behind years ago.

“I want the players to express themselves, and if you can find that 55/45 split, where 55% is saying ‘I’m loving this’, it wins the day.

“So it’s not a literal smile, not a literal chuckle, just that freedom that comes when you’re really enjoying your football.”

Dyche’s players seem to have taken the comments in the spirit they were intended, though Dyche notes: “Vyds did an interview last year, where he said ‘the manager’s told me to smile’, and that kind of got all spun around everywhere - ‘oh, the manager is really clever, tactically very astute’ I believe someone wrote.

“So, I think that was probably misrepresented, but Vyds knows what I mean, and Dwight does, all players know, generalised sayings like ‘get on the front foot’, they know what it means.

“Fans understand that kind of language as well. So it’s a generalised saying, but it does resonate.”

Was the advice something his mentor Brian Clough used to use?: “It wasn’t just Cloughy, a lot of managers from that era, when they wanted players in a good place, they would have that kind of feel. Nowadays, he wouldn’t have survived because he had fun a lot, pre-match, saying quirky things, not loads of information, boards, tactics, it was the mind dynamic of it, days off and things like that.

“Now a chief executive will say ‘I’ve heard you’ve had three days off, how dare you!’ - the trust in the manager has changed.

“But some of their methods were very much like that, they talk about taking players into the zone, but sometimes you’ve got to take them out of it, so they can play with freedom.

“The zone state is better when you’re not over-thinking it, because that’s what the training ground is for.

“Golfers say, playing in the zone is when you’ve done all the training, and then just play on the course, because you should have locked it all in from the training.

“That’s the theory.

“I want players to work, and then when the game comes, automaticity - just deliver it.”

Thomas Muller suggested in the week that Pep Guardiola used to give his players too much information at Bayern Munich, with Guardiola admitting: “As a player, the more information I had, the better prepared I was to face them. It gave me confidence.”

Dyche admits it is a fine line: “There’s always a balance, how much can players absorb? They always suggest the top, top players can absorb more and be more flexible.

“But you could argue with Guardiola, he changed the numbers so many times, they weren’t at the top, but then he brought a more simplistic view with his methods and tactics, and then they ripped it.

“There’s a fine line, even for a top manager like Guardiola, finding the fine lines between how much I give them, how much I trust them, and sometimes how much you take away from them - how much you trust them to go and play.

“It’s an ongoing battle for managers and coaches.

“With Dwight, I’ve actually left him alone a lot. There’s been guidelines, of course, some reminders and analysis, but often, just simplify it, he’s a young man, go and play.

“The game will teach you as much as I can, just by being out there, kinaesthetically doing it.”

Dyche feels academies can overload players with knowledge: “I think self learning is often the best, a lot of the academy stuff is telling them, not teaching them.

“You tell people often enough, they don’t feel it or understand it, they just know it.

“I do like youth football, and some of it is giving them everything, so they’ve forgotten almost to self learn, to learn from the game.

“There’s a lot of brilliant work, but the self learning side of it, some academy situations are better pulling away, giving them a safe environment, good facilities, but putting them in game scenarios, letting them play and summarising them, so they can learn.

“That’s just my opinion, it doesn’t mean it’s the right one!”