SEAN Dyche believes the rest of the Championship is paying more attention to Brentford this season after the Bees proved themselves to be a surprise package last term.

Mark Warbuton’s side made the play-offs before losing in the semi-final to Middlesbrough, but the manager was controversially sacked at the end of the season, with Marinus Dijkhuizen replacing him.

This season they have taken four points from their first two games, having postponed Tuesday’s clash with Birmingham because of the poor state of the Griffin Park pitch, and Dyche thinks his own side and Brentford are teams being watched closely.

“I think they’ll be taken seriously in a different way from us,” said the Clarets chief. “They were the surprise package of last season and did very well in what they nearly achieved but still did very well in the grand scheme of things.”

While Brentford have had an unbeaten start to the Championship season, that first win eludes Burnley.

But Dyche isn’t concerned at the slow start to the campaign.

The manager said he is still rebuilding his team having lost Jason Shackell, Kieran Trippier and Danny Ings this summer, while Dean Marney and Ashley Barnes are long-term injury absentees. He insists the early weeks of the season will not define how Burnley’s 2015/16 ends.

“We’re talking about losing big players and big player growth — as in our own becoming big players — adding some players, remodelling the team, key players who have gone away and that’s before you’ve mentioned the opposition,” said Dyche.

“It’s how quickly we formulate all of that to get that winning feel. No season is defined by three, four, five, six, seven games. Very few seasons are defined by that.

“Forest had theirs last year, they won their first three or four and tailed off and had a tough season. Bristol City a few years ago won their first three and fell right the way down.

“There is no guarantee, particularly in the Championship. We know where we should be. A couple of things have gone against us, out of our control, we still have to take care of business.”

Brentford’s decision to part with Warbuton was driven by chairman Matthew Benham, a former hedge fund manager and professional gambler who is using statistical modelling to help recruit players.

Benham has already had success with similar methods with Danish side FC Midtjylland, who held Southampton to a 1-1 draw in the Europa League this week, and his dismissal of Warbuton saw the Bees switch to a continental structure of head coach and sporting director.

Dyche said his own recruitment team we’re not averse to using stats and a similar Moneyball method to assess potential signings.

“We try and use everything we can,” said the Burnley boss. “ Billy Beane himself said Moneyball doesn’t actually apply very well to football, but there are versions of it that you can use — you can stat players, look at their physical, technical outputs.

“We do a bit of that with analysis, background reports, visual.

Some is from base knowledge, some are no-brainers, some are through good contacts — there’s so many ways.

“ The stats can work out differently but you still use everything you can to try and crunch the margins down so you get more successes than failures in the transfer market.”