MIKE Rigg has hailed Sean Dyche’s importance to Burnley and believes the club’s new recruitment policy - supported by both the manager and chairman Mike Garlick – will provide the Clarets with big long-term benefits.

Dyche has been at the Burnley helm since October 2012, overseeing two promotions to the Premier League as well as the club’s first European campaign in more than 40 years.

The Clarets chief has achieved that success without spending huge sums on transfers and wages as well as seeing a number of players sold.

The likes of Charlie Austin, Danny Ings, Kieran Tripper, Michael Keane and Andre Gray have all flourished under Dyche and then left but the Turf boss has been able to reinvent the squad and ensure the Clarets are competitive in the Premier League – something that has impressed Rigg.

“What Sean has done for the last six and a half years is create a culture and environment on the lowest wages, in the hardest league, with a group that has kept us in the Premier League,” said Burnley’s Technical Director.

“No other club in the country has done that, done what he’s done..

“He is probably the best manager I have every worked for and with. 100 per cent. He knows what he wants and what he likes. He is in a pressure environment but he is really clear, he has a really clear vision, a really clear philosophy.

“He could have thrown me under the buss in January and said we have got to get some targets.

“But what we are trying to equate from this is that it is not my decision, I am just part of the process. There has to be checks and balances along the way. That is where the manager is brilliant. He has said to me all along that we need some targets now but we are also trying to think about the other transfer windows along the road.”

The Clarets have invested in a new analytics system designed to help them in the transfer market, a process Rigg credits Dyche and Garlick for.

He said: “We are doing this because of the foresight of Sean and Mike Garlick. They’ve sat down and looked at how they reinvent it to move on another level.

“To be fair to Mike Garlick he has given us everything we have asked for so far in terms of investment in this. It is a long-term goal. It has been 100 per cent supported by Sean and 100 per cent supported by Mike and has been driven by them.”