Burnley: 2022 decision feels more justified on Everton evidence - View | OneFootball

Sacking Dyche in 2022 might have led to relegation, yet it paved the way for a new-look Burnley under Kompany and Parker

On a fateful April afternoon back in 2022, Burnley did the unthinkable and sacked Sean Dyche - a man who had been at the helm for almost ten years, overseeing two promotions and guiding the Clarets into Europe.

That only tells half the story of Dyche's tenure, with the ending certainly not being all sunshine and rainbows, as Dyche departed Turf Moor with the club staring down the barrel of relegation - something which his temporary successor Mike Jackson could not prevent.

There had been a feeling among Burnley fans that Dyche's tenure had been coming to an end for a while, with European challenges in the Premier League replaced by relegation battles, but given the size of the club, opinion was split, with most Clarets fans simply happy to be punching above their weight.

Appointed as Burnley manager back in 2012, Dyche was a lesser-known quantity, with most Burnley fans now happy to openly admit they hadn't as much as heard of the former Watford boss when he was appointed.

That soon went out the window when a late flurry of results kept Burnley in the Championship in 2012/13, then despite starting the following season among the favourites to face the drop, Dyche did the impossible and guided Burnley to a second-place finish and a return to the top-flight after a four-season hiatus.

Instant relegation followed in 2014/15, before the Clarets bounced back to the Premier League in 2015/16. Seven successive top-flight seasons followed - with differing success - but the highlight was undoubtedly a seventh-place finish in 2017/18 which earned Burnley a spot in the Europa League qualifiers, although they failed to reach the group stages.

Where did Dyche's Burnley reign start to go wrong?

It's hard to pinpoint an exact moment in time where things started to unravel, but after the Europa League campaign ended in a hurry and the subsequent season saw the Clarets battling to beat the drop, the consensus towards Dyche did change a little - at least from a section of the fans.

Couple that with ALK Capital's takeover at the end of December 2020, and there was a growing sense that the club was moving in the opposite direction to which Dyche was pulling.

That proved to be the case, when Burnley's new owners wielded the axe on Dyche in April 2022, and Premier League hall-of-famer Vincent Kompany was ultimately his permanent successor.

His appointment was greeted with an element of skepticism which was soon forgotten when he guided Burnley back to the top-flight at the first time of asking in 2022/23, but a torrid Premier League campaign in which they went down with a whimper sees them back in the Championship now - this time under the guidance of Scott Parker.

A solid start to the campaign has fans dreaming of Premier League football yet again, and visiting Turf Moor has become a more pleasing experience than it was at times during the Dyche days.

Easy-on-the-eye football is the legacy left over from the Kompany days, but Parker has kept the element of steel brought by Dyche, and Turf Moor now feels a totally different place.

Viewing Everton now, they seem to be enduring similar struggles to those that Burnley fans endured - tiresome football coupled with below-par results.

It's the worst possible mix for any football fan, so for the Burnley board to see Dyche enduring similar struggles at Goodison Park, they must feel vindicated that they made the right decision to change manager over two years ago.

This has been the case for the entirety of Dyche's Everton reign too, with this season looking likely to be a third successive season fighting to stave off relegation.

Dyche's number 1 selling point as a manager was that his teams are hard to beat, but with his Everton side conceding a league-high 13 goals in four games this season, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Even Burnley's horrific four-game start to last season yielded a point and saw them concede a goal less, so it could be argued that comparably, Burnley were slightly better off with Kompany last season than Everton are now.

Either way, the future looks bright for Burnley, with Dyche's aging squad he left behind now a thing of the past - replaced by Parker's mix of experience and youthful exuberance, a balance he'll hope to have perfected as the Clarets seek an instant return to the top-flight.