Dyche’s delight at Clarets’ City comeback

Burnley trailed at the break after goals from David Silva and Fernandinho, but came roaring back through George Boyd and Ashley Barnes.

Dyche was happy with the performance in the opening 45 minutes despite the score, and admitted: “I was delighted with the first half if I’m honest, you’re coming to a tough place with some fantastic high-quality players. We often have to see beyond the scoreline, and first half we gave a good performance.

“Their first goal we think we can do more with, and the second goal is fantastic - you hold you hands up for that one.

“But we went in intact in the way we were playing, I reminded the players of that. We put down the marker of getting the first goal, and build on that.

“We did that, in terms of the goal,many the relentless nature of our play after that. The endeavour, quality and desire was high. I was very pleased with everything.”

Dyche revealed the first half display against Liverpool on Boxing Day was as good as he had seen in his reign, and this was further proof of Burnley’s growing confidence at this level: “I think it’s more about the opposition, this is a different level, and it borders on not just the physicality, the technical and tactical, but the mentality, and I think that’s where our biggest growth is.

“We’ve handled that excellently. You can go 2-1 here and the game doesn’t look any different, these players can dominant games. I didn’t think they did second half, we showed great signs of growth in the group and their mentality, how they are maturing at this level.

“There are no guarantees going forward, but there are obvious markers being laid down.”

In this era of squad rotation, Burnley were unchanged for the fifth game, with no substitutes used either, and he explained: “It’s incredible people are making that point. I don’t overthink it, if the team are ready to play, they play, and I thought they were ready.

“I think we are seven games less than last year, we’re not in Europe, so they’re ready to play.

“They’re super fit and they actually cover less distance at this level, more high-intensity, and as you can see they are ready to deliver.”

Boyd appeared to be off-side for Burnley’s first goal, however, Dyche was not too concerned!: “I don’t have a clue, I’ve no interest, all I know is it went in!

“Ive not seen it, someone said its off-side, but a scratch of luck when you’re Burnley Football Club, we’ll take that.”

He left Sam Vokes out of the 18 after his return two days ago against Liverpool, but there is no problem with the striker: “He’s fine, it was solely my decision, having been through long term injuries, the adrenaline hit the other day, the crowd going wild for him...when you’ve had eight and a half months of not having that, it’s a big lift and then drain on the body.

“It was my decision, I just wanted to make sure, two games in three days was too early, just have a couple of down days and we’ll get you going again and come back into the squad as we move forward.”