WHEN Sean Dyche was appointed Burnley manager 691 days ago he inherited a team with the worst defensive record in the Championship.

A back four regularly featuring Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell and Ben Mee had shipped 29 goals in 13 games, including seven in two games the week before Dyche took up the Turf Moor reins on October 30, 2012.

In less than two years Dyche has transformed those four from Championship liabilities to one of the most parsimonious defences in the top flight.

It is an incredible turnaround, from conceding three or more goals on six occasions in 13 Championship matches, to keeping successive clean sheets at home to Manchester United and away at Crystal Palace.

Kieran Trippier played through the dark days defensively under Eddie Howe, and credits the transformation with the work Dyche has done with the back four on the training pitches at Gawthorpe.

“Before the gaffer came in we were conceding quite a lot of goals,” he said.

“He came in when we were in the Championship and he tightened it all up and we had one of the best defensive records last year.

“It’s helped with all the work we’ve been doing in training.

“The gaffer takes the defenders on his own and we do a lot of defensive work, looking at positioning and distances.

“We work hard on that and then take it in to the games.”

Dyche made 520 appearances as a centre back during his playing career, although he never played in the Premier League, and when he arrived at Turf Moor at the end of October 2012, he immediately set about working on the defensive set-up.

“I spoke when I came here many moons ago it seems now, 20 months or 21 months whatever it was, I spoke about the fact you need a base,” Dyche said.

“Usually, but not always, a team’s base is a good framework and a good tactical understanding of what to play from.

“We’ve brought that to the club, I’m convinced of that, and also that freedom to play from that.”

The improvement was immediate.

In his first two games in charge, Turf Moor wins over Wolves and Leeds, the Clarets kept successive clean sheets, and in the 33 Championship fixtures he took charge of in the 2012/13 season, they conceded three times in a game on only one more occasion.

Dyche does a lot of work with his squad during pre-season, instilling in them the foundations of how they should go about their business.

“We’re pretty fortunate that the team kind of knows the way we operate and the new players now do,” he said.

“We do a lot of work in pre-season to lay down the foundation of the team and once the season is up and running it is really just dropping in reminders to them, some on the training field, some chatting to them, some DVD analysis and we try and mix it up for them.”

Twenty-three-year-old Trippier has been one of the biggest improvers under Dyche, to the point where some have pressed his case for an England call-up.

The former Manchester City youngster praised the trust between players and management, and said he had ‘helped him a lot personally’ over the past two years.

"When he first game in there was a trust and that's a massive thing for us as a team and the manager,” he said.

“He trusts us and we trust him in return. His man management, everything, I can't speak highly enough of him. He's great to work with.

"He's helped me a lot personally since he came in. When the old gaffer was here we were getting caught out too many times. He's helped us a lot.”

The work put it during training has been a key element of the recent success, according to Trippier.

He said: “We're at a level where in training everything is intense and fast. On Saturday we don't have to flick a switch because we're straight on it. The tempo of training is phenomenal. We play as we train.”

That time on the training pitch has been increased following promotion, with the Clarets playing only 38 games in the Premier League, with very few midweek fixtures, compared to the 46-game Championship season.

But Dyche doesn’t belief that is necessarily an advantage.

“It’s that balance,” he said.

“When you’ve got lots of games, if results are coming your way it’s kind of managing the group physically and mentally because the tactical shape takes care of itself when you’ve got so many games, you don’t really get as much time to work with it.

“In between its finding that balance when you’re not killing them with it because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy as they say, you’ve got to make sure that they can enjoy training and they thrive in training as well as doing the tactical side of things, because not many players enjoy just the tactical side of the game, just walking around in positions and position specific distances etc, so we try and find that balance.

“It is that yin and yang thing, where some weeks you want that and you want to have a slower week where you are doing lots of tactical work, other weeks it might be just keeping them bubbling really ready for the next one.”

One advantage of the week-long break between fixtures is helping the players come to terms with the differences between the Premier League and the Championship off the pitch.

“What it can do I think is give the players time to adapt,” added Dyche.

“We didn’t have all the media presence last season, there was pockets of it because of the journey we were on, but the players are getting used to that constant scrutiny, the TV coverage of every game, interviews etc. so the good thing about the timescales is between the games they have got time to make sense of it.”