SEAN Dyche has praised Jack Cork’s influence at Burnley ahead of the midfielder’s return to former club Swansea, adding the midfielder ‘gets the club’.

Cork returned to Turf Moor in the summer in an £8million deal from the Swans, having spent 18 months on loan with the Clarets in 2010 and 2011.

The move has rejuvenated the 28-year-old, who won his first England cap in November and has been one of Burnley’s key men in their rise to seventh in the Premier League.

“He’s doing really well. I think he’s enjoying it. He’s fitted in really quickly and accepted what we’re about,” Dyche said of his midfield general.

“He had a background here, so I think that’s been a lot easier for him from a family point of view and all those things. His wife’s from the north, so I think that helps.

“He walked into a whole different thing from when he was here last time, I think they were changing at the ground and travelling down in cars to train here, so that was considerably different.

“But he gets the people, he gets the fans and he gets the feel of the club.”

Dyche has made a habit of signing players with plenty of room for development, such as Nick Pope, James Tarkowski, Johann Berg Gudmundsson and Charlie Taylor.

But in Cork he was snapping up a proven Premier League performer.

Dyche said: “I looked at him and thought, ‘Well if they don’t want him I certainly think he’s a very, very good player’. Corky wasn’t form related. I’ve always thought he was a very good player down many, many years.

“So I thought if I can bring him to this football club then I would, and then we got the chance, so we did.

“Sometimes it’s quite easy like that, it’s quite obvious, whereas sometimes it is form in the sense you see them rise and they look like now they’re growing, they’re maturing and they can handle what the Premier League is.

“Sometimes we do that, with Johann and Popey and Tarky and those sort of lads, but sometimes you just think: They’re a good player, they’re what we could add to our group.”

Cork is one of just seven outfield players to have played every minute in the Premier League this season and he has already started more league games for Burnley this season than he did for Swansea in 2016/17.

Dyche added: “The big thing with Corky is his understanding of the Premier League.

“I thought the first time (Burnley got promoted) we lacked it, I thought last year it improved with the group we had because they’re learning as they’re going.

“And now they’ve raised their understanding, not just in performances, it’s that feel of being in the Premier League.”