‘I AGREE with Alan Shearer’ isn’t a phrase Burnley supporters are used to uttering.

But there was a collective nod of the head when the former Rovers striker praised the job done by Sean Dyche when analysing the Clarets 2-1 victory over Queens Park Rangers on Match of the Day on Saturday night.

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Shearer went as far to suggest that if Dyche completes his mission of keeping Burnley in the Premier League then he should be a shoo-in for manager of the year.

It’s a sentiment that is hard to disagree with. While the Clarets might be proving people wrong on an almost-weekly basis in the Premier League, it is worth remembering where this squad have come from in the past 18 months.

According to bookmakers they started last season more likely to exit the Championship through the back door than the front.

Following promotion Dyche mostly stuck with a squad that had little Premier League experience, and were written off in the Championship last season.

Lukas Jutkiewicz was eventually edged out of the team by Ashley Barnes, with only George Boyd of the summer signings initially forcing his way into the starting XI, followed later by Michael Keane.

It was a squad that lacked the top flight experience, and according to the vast majority of pundits, the quality to survive in the Premier League.

They started the season around 1/2 to be relegated, and after losing to Arsenal on November 1 to make it 10 league games without a win at the start of the season they were 1/7 to go down.

You don’t get 1/7 shots overturned very often, yet 11 games later the Clarets are out of the relegation zone following a run that has incorporated just three defeats since the start of November.

According to the bookies Burnley are still favourites for relegation, yet that looks to be based on an assessment of a squad of individuals rather than the collective that appears to be growing in confidence in the top flight by the week.

A particularly salient point that Shearer made was that there was never any panic emanating from the club during that winless start.

Seven of the 12 clubs promoted to the Premier League in the past four seasons have sacked their manager when they struggled in the top flight, becoming victims of their own success, but it was a route that would never have been taken at Turf Moor, no matter what the season was to bring.

Dyche also insisted that his side were performing well in those opening months of the season, and he has been rewarded with a turnaround in fortunes that will have shocked many outside observers.

There’s a long way to go yet, but odds of 10/1 on Dyche being named manager of the year are beginning to look very appealing.