The high point of Sean Dyche’s ten-year stint as Burnley boss was the 2017/18 campaign which saw the Clarets finish seventh in the Premier League and earn a Europa League spot.
This meant that the Lancashire side - who had been playing Championship football two years earlier - were going on a European adventure for the first time in more than half a century.
That began with a clash against Aberdeen in the second qualifying round, before Istanbul Basaksehir were dispatched to set up a play-off against Olympiacos, where they would come up short and suffer a 4-2 aggregate defeat.
Dyche reflects on Burnley’s European journey
So how does Dyche reflect on Burnley’s European qualifcation seven years on - and does he believe that his achievement has been underestimated?
“That’s probably for someone else to answer,” he tells FourFourTwo. ““But for a club of our size and with our budget to finish seventh in the Premier League, I can look back at it now and, yes, I can say that is some achievement.
“You look back and think, “Bloody hell”. There are examples. Look at what Forest did last season, but there was massive investment there.
“I might not have reflected enough on what we did at Turf Moor, but I am beginning to and we can all be very proud.”
Burnley’s European qualifcation meant the team had to play their first game of the season on July 26 and saw Dyche’s squad tested to the max, resulting in a 15th-place Premier League finish that season.
“It was difficult! Logistically it was very tricky,” Dyche adds. “Our club wasn’t used to all that and we certainly didn’t have the squad depth to cope with it.
“If I’m honest, as great an achievement as that was, I couldn’t really enjoy it. The be all and end all was the Premier League form and I knew it would suffer.
“We only had 12 points at Christmas. Our pre-season had been affected and as much as we might have been excited about an early trip to Italy or Spain, our first tie was at Aberdeen on the North Sea!
“Turkey and Greece were intense experiences with incredible crowds – I found the things being thrown at me quite amusing. But I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed it all.”
Dyche is now enjoying a second bite of the European cherry with Nottingham Forest, with his first match in charge following Ange Postecoglou’s dismissal being a 2-0 win over Porto in the Europa League.
