How Sean Dyche made Burnley contenders for Europe

Burnley’s impressive start to the campaign is this season’s ‘Cinderella’ story but the stereotype of the Lancashire club led by a gruff ‘old-school’ manager disguises the very effective method behind their rise.

Although they were fourth before last night’s Premier League matches, a return to European football for the Clarets, who featured as English champions in the European Cup in 1961 and reached the quarter-finals of the Fairs Cup, the forerunner of the modern-day Europa League, in 1967, is probably in the realms of dreamland.

But the league table does not lie and the numbers tell the story of a team that is certainly achieving well above any reasonable expectations.