Former Burnley midfielder Steven Hewitt has opened up on life at Turf Moor, describing what it was like to work with Sean Dyche, Danny Ings, and Kieran Trippier.
Hewitt, 26, is currently enjoying playing for NPL Victoria side Hume City in Australia, where the football is about to get back underway with the ex-Burnley man among the league's top goalscorers.
He told Tribal Football about the important influence Eddie Howe had on his career, and how the now Bournemouth manager differs from the methods of Dyche, whose focus is more on opposition strengths than his own team's possession.
"Obviously Howe is a great manager," he said. "He gives a lot of confidence to the players, and he just lets them go and express themselves, which good managers do. He didn't have a great time at Burnley, but my football career started from Howe giving me that first professional contract.
"With Howe, it was a lot of playing out from the back, possession football, and how to move the other team around. Don't get me wrong, Dyche does that as well, but maybe more so with Eddie. But Dyche is a very clever manager, he plays to his strengths, he knows that Burnley aren't going to pass big teams off the park.
"So he's clever, he knows how to exploit weaknesses, and that's what training is like throughout the week; it depends on the team you are facing."
Hewitt also spoke about some of the best players he worked with at Burnley, including Trippier, Danny Ings, Charlie Austin, and Jay Rodriguez, the four names he picked out as exceptional talents.
Rodriguez returned to Burnley last summer, while Tripper (Atletico Madrid), Ings (Southampton) and Austin (West Brom) are all completing impressive seasons.
"It was amazing. Even in training you could just tell that players like Ings, Trippier, Rodriguez, and Austin, would go on to better things. Just the way they trained, their attitude, the quality they had – it was just different. You could tell they were just better than where they were.
"They were brilliant players, and brilliant lads as well – really nice lads."
