Burnley Fan View: Sean Dyche's new contract is our best business this century

When Sean Dyche signed a long term contract with the club on Wednesday he pledged his loyalty to paper, after he had been on a yearly rolling contract since he joined the club in 2012. After a stunning rise up the league and developments on and off the field it is his just desserts and its great we are recognising that financially. Dyche signing is easily the biggest contract we’ve had signed since he joined the club, and probably this century – I can’t think of one more important.

When he joined the club we were a middling championship team, and investment since relegation had been patchy and misguided. Brian Laws couldn’t inspire confidence and Eddie Howe couldn’t defend. Dyche was not a Hollywood name and frankly I was disappointed with his arrival.

In his first half season we were uninspiring to watch but ground out enough results to comfortably stay up. By the summer some were calling for a change of managers even that early, Burnley fans can be fickle. I felt it was too soon and he hadn’t set his mark on the club yet so it would have been far from fair.

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From the next season onwards we have seen the perfect storm of patience, skill and most importantly hard work pay off. Dyche has done a magnificent job of recognising our weaknesses and resolving them bit by bit, without losing that spirit that binds it together.

It sounds like a cliché and for many it is just words, but Dyche believes it and has made the players, staff, board and people of Burnley believe it too. We all buy in to the theory and we can see how it plays out in practice.

When Dyche arrived, we couldn’t defend, so he fixed that. Next job was to get the goals, and Vokes and Ings formed a partnership to get us promoted. In the Premier League we lacked the financial clout and experience to compete, we battled but went down. Those same players weren’t discarded but rewarded and we won the league with virtually the same team. Last season we invested in experience and benefited from having the same basic squad who were relegated 2 years before. We stayed up comfortably. This season we have invested in technical quality and as such we are playing better football and not merely grinding out results but playing some team off the park.

It’s an evolution, not a revolution, and it’s all because of Dyche.

It’s easier said than done, and patience has been hard sometimes – but you can’t fail to see what has been built here.

Off the field Dyche has been instrumental in our new training ground and facilities. This is very much his club in his image. No man is bigger than any football club, but Dyche has made himself almost irreplaceable at Burnley. I am absolutely delighted that he is here for the long term.

Who knows what the next stage of the evolution is, either way I’m excited to witness it and privileged that Dyche will be spearheading it for at least four and a half more years.

In Dyche We Trust.