IT doesn't take Sean Dyche long to recall his finest moment as a player in the League Cup and a performance that earned him, and his parents, a considerable bonus.

Dyche was a defender at Chesterfield playing in the Rumbelows Cup when he starred for the Spireites, winning the man of the match award and a prize from the sponsors that he can still recall in vivid detail even now.

When asked for his memories from the competition as a player before his Burnley side face Leeds at Turf Moor tonight in the third round, Dyche immediately responds: "Winning a TV. When it was the Rumbelows Cup you used to win a TV for getting man of the match. I gave it to my mum and dad. It was a good quality Sony TV."

Dyche can't remember the game that he played so well in, but he can remember the prize. And it wasn't a one off either. Perhaps inspired by his previous award, Dyche was man of the match when the competition was sponsored by Coca Cola.

This time the prize was a mountain bike which Dyche flogged to the son of Nicky Law, now Burnley's head of recruitment for the under-23 age group.

"I played really well, and the next year I won a bike. It was when Coca-Cola sponsored it and because they weren't going to give you a crate of Coca-Cola you used to get a bike," Dyche said of another fine display in the League Cup.

"I believe Nicky Law, one of our scouts, had it for £25 back in the day. A red Coca-Cola mountain bike. It was a £150 bike.

"When you're a player at Chesterfield you're not thinking that we're going to win the league, this is pre FA Cup (run to the semi-finals), so you enjoyed the games and a nice little Brucey bonus if you got man of the match and it was a TV. Which I did. I've got a feeling it was a Sony Trinitron. It was a good size.

"I remember on the cusp of the turnover when plasmas first started coming out I actually offered that TV to Oxfam and they said 'no, no, everyone wants flat screens now'. They wouldn't even take a free TV to give to someone. My mum and dad had had it in a bedroom and it had hardly been used. I thought what has the world come to!"

Man of the match prizes have changed in the intervening years, although it's not known if tonight's star man will land himself a year's supply of energy drinks courtesy of the competition's latest sponsor, Carabao.

The League Cup's standing in the game has diminished in recent years and the 2-0 win at Blackburn Rovers in round two was Burnley's first in the competition since 2013/14.

Dyche insists he still has plenty of time for cup competitions, but the rise of the Premier League and the glory, and finances, involved now make that competition the priority.

"I’ve tried to be brutally honest about it. The fact is the Premier League is where everyone wants to be," he said.

"It’s nothing to do with downgrading a cup, everyone is clamouring to be in the Premier League, players are clamouring to be in the Premier League, clubs are clamouring to be in the Premier League, it’s one of the most powerful leagues to be in the world.

"It hasn’t downgraded the cups, it’s just that is the thing that everyone wants. It’s the kudos and what being in the Premier League brings from a club and brand point of view.

"I’ve had some great times in cups, I don’t look at it as a lesser competition, I just look at it as a competition we want to do well in."

Burnley survived in the Premier League last season but exited the League Cup to a League Two side and the FA Cup to a National League outfit.

"Off course it’s worth a trade off, but it’s not a planned trade off," Dyche said of those upsets.

"Would you win the FA Cup or stay in the Premier League is a huge debate. If fans were honest it’s a really tough one. Winning a cup is a big honour and a big thing and it’s there forever, but being in the Premier League brings a constant stream of well being to a club and good health to a club.

"It's become part of (modern football). I never personally do down the cup and what it means because I've been part of that myself.

"But there's still a reality to my job. My job is to help that team to continue to be successful in the Premier League.

"If we can have a good cup run then fantastic. Is it more important than the reality of the Premier League? In the grand scheme of the club and the health of it - no.

"In the kudos world, if you go and win a cup, it's fantastic for clubs like this. It was Wigan wasn't it that won a cup and went down? Since then what has happened to Wigan? Which would their fans take? It would be a brilliant debate. They won it, went down and have had a tough time recovering from that."