Sean Dyche anticipated tough season, but remains confident Burnley "will be fine"

But he remains confident the Clarets will find a way out of relegation trouble, ahead of Sunday’s important trip to Norwich City.

Burnley are four points adrift of safety as Everton bounced back from Wednesday night’s 3-2 defeat at Turf Moor to beat a rudderless Manchester United at Goodison Park.

Dyche’s side can ramp the pressure back up with victory at Carrow Road, but he is hoping to stave off the drop to continue the rejuvenation of the squad, which began in the summer with the arrival of Nathan Collins, Maxwel Cornet and Connor Roberts – all 26 and under.

When the club finished seventh in 2018 and qualified for the Europa League, Dyche felt the business done that summer was not sufficient, and it only tailed off, as Mike Garlick prepared to sell the club, with ALK Capital taking over in January 2021.

Dyche signed a new contract in September, committing his future to the club until the summer of 2025, but did so expecting another battle for survival, after last season, which he described as "my most challenging as a manager, without a doubt."

He said: “I felt that there was a crossover period the club was going to hit, because the last three years of investment were not where they needed to be, for the obvious reason in the end of the club being sold.

"I explained to the new ownership that there would likely be a toughish period – maybe not this tough.

"I was expecting a bit better than this, but it was not going to be a walk in the park because we have to keep regenerating, and the regeneration that should have been done in the last three years hasn’t been.

"Now we have to regenerate quickly, so we started the process with Connor, Collo and Maxwel – a bit younger.

“Even with the new ownership, who I think are bit more open minded to not just the money side, but players from afar, you cannot regenerate overnight, unless you put in £90million like Newcastle did in January.

“When you are like us, you are piecing it together over time, and it is not easy to re-model and get players in who can actually play in the Premier League while you are doing it.”

Dyche added, on what he anticipated when signing his deal: “Probably it would be a tough period, possibly we could have had one of those seasons where we take off.

“We are not far short, it is easy for me to say, and we don’t know what is going to happen, but I think we will be fine.

“The margins are tight in our seasons, virtually every season. Even when we finished seventh, I think we had a record number of 1-0 wins.

"We are not winning 3-0 every week, and this season we haven’t got on the right side of margins, mainly through creating good chances and not taking them, and a few too many errors in key moments in key games.

“Most games we haven’t been far from it, and now we have to correct it over the last nine games.”