SEAN Dyche believes his trio of goalkeepers are pushing each other on to new heights - but Tom Heaton is almost certain to retain number one status once he has overcome his calf injury.

Heaton has missed Burnley’s last two games with the problem but was ‘pretty close’ to a return at Stoke on Saturday according to Dyche and could well be back between the posts for the visit of Bournemouth this weekend.

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Despite Heaton’s position at the top of the tree Dyche is confident stand-in Paul Robinson and third-choice Nick Pope are aware of the goalkeeping pecking order at the club at the moment.

“There’s a natural hierarchy among goalkeepers and I’d be surprised if they didn’t expect Tom to play, from the beginning of the season,” he said.

“Has he played well? Yes. Therefore most keepers understand the rules of being a goalie - you keep your shirt. There’s a fight off for the second shirt but I’ve explained to Pope that he’s got a bigger, longer future ahead than this moment in time.

“He’s working with two top class goalies and a top class goalkeeping coach. He is developing and moving forward all the time.

“Tom over time has proven himself and you can’t play as many games as he has, play as consistently as he has, played the level he’s been at for us, himself and the team for that long, and not have a fair shout of going straight back in.

“I don’t do ‘guarantees’ but he’s as close to that as you can look at in our team. He’s had game after game of high level delivery.”

Robinson has started the last two games in Heaton’s absence, the 37-year-old’s first competitive action in more than two years.

Despite that time out of the game he has performed well on his return, but having seen him in training that was no surprise to Dyche.

“The players here would know how well he’s been performing, they see it every day,” he said. “We do a lot of football work with keepers involved. Players see him in action every day.”

Heaton’s absence has also meant an elevation to the bench for 24-year-old Nick Pope, a summer recruit from Charlton Athletic.

He has played just once for the club so far, in the EFL Cup defeat to Accrington Stanley.

But Dyche has no plans to send him out on loan and believes he is improving as a goalkeeper due to the quality of the people he is working with every day at Gawthorpe.

“He’s got years ahead of him,” Dyche said of Pope. “If you look at Robbo, he’s 37 and still looks great.

“He’s developing all the time. With all due respect to Charlton I don’t think they were working with a group of keepers that we’ve got here. I don’t think they’re working within the general group of quality that we’ve got.

“If you’ve got that quality of finishing every day, firing shots at you and you’re working with the other keepers as well, it stands to reason that you’re going to continue to get better.”