Former Everton manager Sean Dyche has been linked with a return to Burnley with Scott Parker reportedly under pressure
Former Everton manager Sean Dyche is being linked with a swift return to football less than a week after being the third Nottingham Forest boss to be sacked this season.
Recent reports have claimed that Scott Parker is now under severe pressure as despite securing a first Premier League victory in 17 games with their 3-2 comeback win at Crystal Palace on February 11, the Clarets were then dumped out of the FA Cup by League One Mansfield Town as they suffered a 2-1 home defeat on Valentine’s Day. Amid the speculation that Parker could be on the brink, former Everton chief executive Keith Wyness claims he’s heard that Dyche could make a dramatic return to Burnley.
Speaking on Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, Wyness, 68, who was the Blues’ CEO between 2004-09 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs, said: “Well, the whispers I heard this morning was Sean Dyche going back to Burnley. And I think that that wouldn’t surprise me at all, actually, if that was to happen.
“I think Scott Parker’s done an admirable job. It’s very difficult circumstances with Burnley. They didn’t invest like Sunderland did in terms of when they came up and I know that the owners have also bought a club in Spain (Espanyol), so maybe their focus is being slightly distorted.
“There are rumours of financial issues around the ownership at the moment, just rumours in the paper that I have yet to finalise or check out or verify. But still, I think the fans would take Dyche back willingly.
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“I think he is what they need in terms of getting back up. But then again, if they stick with Scott Parker, to me, that’s not the worst option either, I think Scott’s shown he could do well.
“And I like Scott as a manager and I think at Burnley he could do a job of bringing them back up from the Championship and I think they’ve got to accept that’s what they’re looking at now is rebuilding for that Championship challenge.”
Dyche steered Burnley to seventh in the Premier League in 2017/18, their highest position since they came sixth in 1974 and thus led them into European competition for the first time since 1966/67. His achievements at the Clarets prompted a local pub to be renamed The Royal Dyche from its previous name The Prince Royal in his honour, with the sign showing him mocked up in the garb of King Henry VIII.
Yet, following his first return to Burnley as an opposition manager, a 2-0 win for Everton on December 16 2023 (the Blues wouldn’t taste victory again in the Premier League for another 14 matches until the return fixture at Goodison Park on April 6), Dyche insisted there were no issues between himself and Alan Pace after the chairman who sacked him failed to acknowledge his former manager’s nine-and-a-half years’ service in his programme notes.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, the Kettering-born gaffer said: “I saw Alan Pace in the hotel where we were staying this morning – Crow Wood, very nice, it used to annoy me that they had a really nice hotel here for the other teams to stay in – and said hello. Football is a weird business right, I don’t throw my dummy out, I’ve done my bit, I’ve done my years, I shook his hand and said, ‘is everything ok? Nice to see you’, crack on.
“Vincent (Kompany, his successor at Burnley), I met him at the end of last season at the LMA do, told him how impressed I was with his work and how they hadn’t lost the fabric of it even though he’d put his mark on it and changed it to his liking. We can all moan about everyone and everything but at the end of the day, people have got a lot on their plate, I just try and take care of mine and get on with it.
“I said when I left, ‘that’s me’. A chapter finished for the club and a chapter finished for me. I’ve a huge respect – I shouldn’t need to say it because I’ve said it so many times because I do – for the club, the people around the club, the fans. I had a fantastic time here, it’s helped my life develop as well.
“If I’ve paid my bit back, among many others here over many years then fine, that’s how it should be, hopefully. You find ways of being successful but there are so many other people involved in the nine-and-a-half years I was here, it’s not just me, trust me.”
Dyche was given a standing ovation from Burnley fans , though, which he acknowledged was a touching gesture. He said: “That’s a nice thing. You want to be successful as a manager, whatever that is in real terms, the success here wasn’t just winning games, the whole club changed and that’s a massive success and there are so many involved.
“That’s a really nice thing, it’s nice to enjoy that moment and it’s a rare one when a manager gets respect from hopefully the Evertonians as well, but certainly from the Burnley fans, it’s a nice moment.”
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