City win reinforces our belief – Clarets boss

The next port of call for the Clarets is a trip to sixth-place Southampton on Saturday, looking to do the double over the Saints.

In the last game before an international break, Dyche’s men go there in good heart, three points behind Hull City in 15th, and Dyche looked at the impact of one of the results of the season: “It reinforces all the good things we do as a group, staff players, the connection between that, the belief in what we do.

“It’s the rewards for the will, demand and quality, the organisation, all those things.”

Burnley were written off as soon as they were promoted, but especially ahead of a run of games which included trips to Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, and City at home, but they refuse to go away, and Dyche added: “I think a lot is made of this tough run of games, and we know that, we’re honest with ourselves and the players.

“These are the challenges we wanted.

“It’s not just the crowd and the town, it’s not about the money, we want the challenge.

“When the games come out, you take them on, and I think we’ve been pretty brave in how we’ve gone about it.

“We were again on Saturday.”

There has been a lot of discussion about how effective 4-4-2 is in the modern game, but Dyche countered: “People make a lot of the 4-4-2, It always implies it’s archaic, I think there’s a lot of flexibility in the way we play, it’s only a format to go and play from.

“No one knows where it will end up still, just because we got a great result, there’s no guarantees for the next one, and we will have to be ready.”