SEAN Dyche admits the 'million-dollar' question for sides like Burnley in the Premier League is how to chase the top six down.

Until recently the Clarets were leading the chasing pack this season, spending much of the campaign in seventh and having infiltrated the top four during December.

But the spending power of the Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal is beginning to come to the fore again, with the Gunners in sixth now eight points clear of Leicester City and Burnley.

Dyche signed a new four-and-a-half year deal at Turf Moor this week, but said the question facing all clubs outside of the elite was how they were going to break into that cartel.

“That’s the million-dollar future question for football, is how outside of the super-power clubs, how are we going to chase them down?," he said.

“The way it’s looking at the minute, I don’t think there will be another Leicester story for a while because coaching still starts with the raw ingredient and if that raw ingredient is of a higher level in the first place and then a coach comes in and works with that raw ingredient with a higher skill set, that’s going to make the challenge for everyone else harder.”

Even if the top six remain almost certainly out of reach Dyche still believes there is plenty that can be achieved at Turf Moor between now and the end of the 2021/22 season, when his latest new contract will expire and his time at the club will be close to a decade.

“I really like seeing players develop. That’s still my underlining thing," the Clarets chief said.

"Winning is the beautiful feeling you get from it all going well. We played Man United (last weekend) and some of our performances were top drawer, so that’s development for me.

"The goal is to be successful here. It’s a nice by-product if because of that success, these players are developing.

"So if you can’t win the Premier League, how can you win? You can win by developing players, you can win for this area. It’s not a major city and the whole place buzzes off having a Premier League football club."

Dyche's chances of blasting open the door to the top six could be limited given Burnley's spending power compared to those clubs.

But he insists he has come to terms with that now and is happy to take on the challenge.

“The club works in a certain manner I’ve come to understand, the main thing as a manager to understand the reasoning behind that," he said.

"There are reasons behind it. If the chairman was wealthy by Premier League standards, hundreds and hundreds of millions, or billions, it might be a different conversation.

"I enjoy the task of what it is, the reality. There is clarity in the work place, a good understanding between myself and the board of what the club is, and the fans connect with that.

"For every question mark, there’s a positive that balances it up."