Sean Dyche on his Burnley future: “As long as I know what the challenge is, I’m happy to manage. As long as I know what the guidelines are you have to work under.”

After guiding Burnley to a second top-10 Premier League finish in three seasons, he very much deserves a good break from it all, especially after a season which has spanned 12 months.

Speculation lingers as to whether he will be back for an eighth full season in charge at Turf Moor, and one suspects there are things to be ironed out with chairman Mike Garlick if he is to continue to be satisfied in the hot seat here, with a number of key contract situations to be attended to, as well as the resources for recruitment for the new season.

He is well aware 10th place counts for nothing in September when the 2020/21 campaign opens, given a season where Watford were relegated after a top half finish and an FA Cup Final.

But he knows he has a group of players who continue to develop and run through brick walls for him.

Dyche said of taking a run of two defeats in 16 Premier League games into next season: “We will restart, we will restart our thinking and planning.

“Confidence comes and goes but builds from results and you can't build results through a summer.

“You have to earn the right again next season. All this does is remind the players that they are capable as individuals and as a collective.

“We know that but we know we have to earn the right and work for everything we get.

“The players know that. They have delivered and they know the requirements and it is about how well they use their downtime and rest and come in focused on the next challenge.”

As regards the future, Dyche would only say: “I have been asked that about 4,000 times. I will be going on holiday tomorrow morning!”

He remains hugely ambitious, and it could be a case of whether the club can stretch to help match that, and keep the club’s greatest manager of modern times at Turf Moor.

Dyche said: “I think every manager is ambitious, we’ve been ambitious within the framework we’re given here.

“Ambition is a strange situation, here it is making the best of everything we can, and that’s a big challenge.

“We try and rinse every drop out of every situation, it’s tough at times, but enjoyable. My staff and the players buy into that.

“I believe in the development of what we do.

“Of course it needs support, that’s just an obvious fact of football, not just about Burnley Football Club, it’s the realities. It’s how much support you can get.

“The strategy, financially, we don’t work with budgets, which is always tough, but that’s always been the same here, it’s not new ground.

“I think we continue to make sense of it.

“We’re ambitious to a level that the club can allow us to get to, but we’re certainly ambitious with the players we’ve got, we tend not to make excuses, we keep driving, and that’s the way I look at it.

“As long as I know what the challenge is, I’m happy to manage. As long as I know what the guidelines are you have to work under.

“It only gets tricky when those guidelines start getting blurred or getting stretched, and not stretched in the right direction.”

And he retains the appetite for management, given the strangest season in memory: “I think the challenge of football at all levels...I’ve spoken to a number of managers, and management is a tricky business.

“It’s way harder than people think, that’s why most managers gravitate to each other after a game, because they’re the only two that know how it feels.

“It’s always the shifting sands, the different challenges coming your way on and off the pitch, but the more experienced I get, the more I work to improve, along with the staff and players - I keep focused on that, because I believe in the development of others and myself.

“I like the challenge, it is tough at times, but it is very enjoyable when times are better, as they have been after this lockdown. The payback you get is when you see a group of people give what they’ve given. When you see them giving everything they can to win games, that’s a tremendous thing.”