Daily Telegraph interview with Sean Dyche

[Chester Perry]

behind a paywall but if you sign up can have a free article a week

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Exclusive Sean Dyche interview: 'Life’s not a dress-rehearsal – if you want to do something, do it'

The psychological profile of Sean Dyche is revealing. “Impatient. Extrovert. Honest. Good maturity,” he explains. So only positive things, I say. Except, wait, what about impatient?

“Ah, now you are thinking,” Dyche answers. “At first you went for the throwaway line and thought ‘Dyche thinks he’s brilliant’. Now you are thinking – ‘impatient? That can be a bad thing, particularly in this business’.

“So that’s the point. That’s how you learn about yourself. Impatience? Where does that live? Impatience? ‘ah, yes, really demanding’. But what about when you need patience? And honesty? That’s another one. That also sounds really positive. But is it now? What if people don’t really want that. It’s not a positive then.”

The Burnley manager is sitting in the upstairs staffroom at Burnley St Peters Church of England Primary School having just finished a PE session as part of the Premier League’s Primary Stars programme. There is something of the headmaster about Dyche. It is not hard to imagine, in another life, the 46-year-old running the school in the heart of the Lancashire town which he says has such a “connection” with the club.

For example, a couple of minutes into our conversation Dyche uses the phrase “moral fibre” and how it is “stretched in the throwaway society” of the modern world and later on he discusses the importance of having “principles” and the “moral standard”, the “moral code” that is at his core.

“Work hard and do it right. Very simple; but very effective,” Dyche says. “They are morals I got from my mum and dad. And within that are the details. Be respectful. Try and smile, try and enjoy it. They are things that I still value. So when I get asked my opinions I can’t then turn them off and say ‘well that’s alright then, that’s acceptable’. If a player is diving around on the floor, that’s not acceptable. ‘Woah, woah, woah, we don’t do that, son’. Do you know what I mean? Therefore I don’t switch it off. But no-one seems to be – and it’s the impression I get – as worried about it as me. Everyone else seems to say ‘stroll on, it doesn’t matter’.”

Diving is certainly a bug-bear, one he has spoken of before. Dyche recalls the dismissal, for two yellow cards, earlier this week of Chelsea midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko against Watford. The second yellow card, Dyche says, was “for no reason”. He adds: “I don’t think he physically touched him [Richarlison] but he gets sent off for a player who has jumped up in the air… That’s not correct. And the reason I don’t think it’s correct is because we are at a school today, among children, and what messages am I sending out to my own son, as a dad, let alone the world if I think that’s correct?”

For years Dyche has used Simon Clarkson, a psychologist, to build profiles of all the players. It is one of the “non-negotiables” of playing for Burnley, who are away to Swansea City on Saturday, but Dyche would not expect them to do anything that he would not do first. So he was profiled. It is “only for learning trends”; to create a “short tick-list of prompts” about how to handle each player.
“There was this thinking that you can’t get too close to the players,” Dyche says. “I’m not sure about that. I’m still working it out but my style is, and I am not in amongst the players, it’s not like they have a night out and I go with them, but I am there enough for them to know I am approachable, they can talk to me, they can trust me. So therefore I am going to share a profile: right, there’s mine.”

There are rules. Such as players not wearing headphones during media interviews. “In my world these are common sense moments of respect,” Dyche explains. “If I am going to view someone and listen to them then I want to view them and listen to them. The more of all of that (gesturing to show headphones around his neck) you put on then your words become less because people are concentrating on all of the rest of it.

“So give yourself a chance. Project what you want to project. But don’t cover it in all of that because people have already made a decision in three seconds - ‘hat, headphones, one sleeve rolled up, one down’. They have already made that assessment. So how can you get your words across? So don’t give them a chance to go ‘oh he looks…’ in fact your look does not even come into it because you look so uniform they will listen to you.”

As we are in a school, I ask Dyche about his reading habits. He is not a voracious reader but says there is a clear message in The Gold-Mine Effect and The Boys in the Boat, books he has recently read. “You get through 500 pages to think to yourself at the end: work really hard at something and do it a lot,” he says. “You have to have some form of talent. Getting to a skill-set when you can do something is achievable. Getting to a skill-set when you can do it an elite level is a different thing.
“If I said ‘we are going to learn Spanish’. After the first six lessons you go ‘ah, I can’t do it, I can’t do it. I ain’t got time’. But when you are learning to drive how many driving lessons will you do before you pass? You do it because your belief in learning to drive is so powerful you will do it. You say ‘I am going to learn to drive no matter what they put in front of me’. If you fail seven tests, you will take an eighth, if you fail the eighth you will take a ninth. What stops anyone from applying that logic to other things in life?

“And it does stop us by the way. It’s discomfort. Things that are uncomfortable and demand time and effort and patience we can switch off to. And I am intrigued by that concept. It’s about human tolerance. I’m not talking about someone who does 12-hour shifts overnight and expect them to say ‘right, I am going to learn Spanish’ but let’s imagine on an even flow of life what stops people from going ‘I’m going to do that’. Instead they say ‘oh, I wish I’d done that’. Well get out and do it. Life’s not a dress-rehearsal. So if you want to do it; do it. Like you do for your driving test.”

Dyche, into his sixth year at Burnley, who still sit a hugely impressive seventh in the Premier League, obviously relishes being a football manager and talks of the “endorphin fix” of the job, creating the “culture and environment” for players to thrive and, without saying it, being paternalistic.

“For every non-negotiable they will have five negotiables,” Dyche explains. “So it’s a good deal. A fair deal. It’s not like ‘I’m doing this, end of story’. It’s more ‘this is non-negotiable but if you do this I will all of these things’ – food, travel, time off. Family first is one of my rules. Anything personal that they need to sort out I will trust them. Fine, go, get in the car.

“I’m judged by performances and results. But I also enjoy seeing individuals develop. I judge my own self by ‘are the players improving?’ And only because when I stopped playing I had this thing in my head that said ‘I’ve done my bit, that’s me done, I’m finished. What can I give someone else now from those 20 years of learning?’ I don’t miss playing at all. I don’t do regrets. There’s no point, really. It’s not the way I am built.”

[Cleveleys_claret]

Not just a great manager but from what i read and how others speak of him and how he gets Burnley I would say a great human being. A person others instinctively will follow to the ends of the earth

[Caernarfon_Claret]

As Joey Barton said the first manager who actively listened to him, not always agreeing but listening out of respect.

[Rowls]

Thanks for sharing Chester. Great article.

[Dyched]

Id love to sit down with Sean with Pint/cup of tea and just talk about life. No talk of football whatsoever.

His outlook is spot on.

[Vegas Claret]

I cannot wait for his book (whenever that might be)

[quoonbeatz]

growing up i always wanted to be a footballer but these days i'd specifically want to be a footballer managed by dyche.

must be ace.

[levraiclaret]

It's ace supporting a club managed by Mr Dyche.

Good article thanks Chester.

[Belial]

How many read that in Dyche's accent?

[springsteenisaclaret]

How many read that in Dyche's accent?

Haha, i did for one. Great post, thanks for sharing it. What a top man SD seems to be, i too would love to sit down and have a pint and a chat with him, think it would be very interesting. My son has met him a few times through work meetings and speaks very highly of him, real nice guy.

[Man of Kent]

His views on players who wear those ridiculous dustbin lid-style headphones when being interviewed or when arriving at a stadium in front of the cameras are spot on and congratulations to him for having the balls to stand up to that kind of behaviour and prevent it at Burnley. Those kinds of pre-planned, idiotic gestures, where many Premier League players all follow each other like a flock of sheep, are for other lesser clubs not ours. I've always felt the headphone thing was the height of arrogance and bad manners with an undertone of "I'm so much better than you and I want to lock you out of my life!"

[Belial]

Haha, i did for one. Great post, thanks for sharing it. What a top man SD seems to be, i too would love to sit down and have a pint and a chat with him, think it would be very interesting. My son has met him a few times through work meetings and speaks very highly of him, real nice guy.

Only met him the once (although I have been his room at Gawthorpe without him being in) and he was an absolute gent. The type of guy that if he were your boss, you know you could have a laugh with him and ask for advice but at the same time something about him just demands respect

[evensteadiereddie]

I spoke to him and John B at the friendly at Alfreton. It started with a simple, passing "How do." to the pair of them followed by Dyche asking me, me !, if I was "buzzing" about the new season. I must admit I was a bit overawed at first but we must have spent ten minutes chatting about Corky coming in, how Defour was shaping up, how brilliant clubs like Alfreton are and so on.
He listens, he chats, he jokes, all this with his chairman at his side who also, to be fair, is a great bloke too.
It's times like that, our amazing success and that the news of Dyche signing on for another four years makes me realise just how lucky we are.

[bedfords]

Most of that could have been re-written from the Barton interview.