WHEN Arsene Wenger was appointed Arsenal manager on September 30, 1996, Sean Dyche was a 25-year-old centre half still playing in England’s third tier.

The day Wenger started work at Highbury, Dyche was involved in Chesterfield’s 2-1 win over Shrewsbury and still had over 10 years of his playing career left.

Today the duo will be in opposite Premier League dugouts at Turf Moor and Dyche, now a 43-year-old making a name for himself in the management game, makes no secret of his admiration for a man taking charge of his 1,058th Arsenal game today.

But while the Frenchman is an inspiration to Dyche, who will take charge of his 120th Burnley game late this afternoon, he isn’t sure we will ever see his like again.

“I think he is an inspiration from the outside looking in,” he said.

“His longevity is incredible. It’s getting harder. Even Arsene Wenger, look at the demands he has had, certainly the last two or three years, it seems to grow each year if they do not win the immediate five games of the season.

“Slowly but surely they deliver and now they are in second and have a sniff of catching the leaders so the story changes and he does that more or less every year. It’s fantastic.”

Wenger’s extraordinary managerial career began when Dyche was just a 13-year-old football-obsessed kid in Kettering, and he has taken charge of 1,325 games more than Dyche so far in his career.

The Gunners boss is well clear at the top of the list of longest-serving managers in the Football League, but Dyche’s two years and 163 days at Turf Moor are good enough for 18th of the 92 clubs, a statistic which illustrates just how difficult it is to stay in a job now, and how times have changed since Wenger arrived in north London.

The demands now are so instant. You have got to deliver,” said Dyche.

It is interesting from the outside looking in, watching managers go into jobs and how they are going to build this or that and their philosophy. I’m thinking ‘you had better win first’.

“Philosophy for me, if that is the word they use to choose about themselves, is built over time but whatever it is it, you have to win first because winning buys you time. That has changed radically.

“Managers 20 years ago, they had a chance to build first and then see if it worked; now it has got to work instantly and then you build after it’s worked.”

Dyche is on good terms with Wenger’s Arsenal assistant Steve Bould, having becoming friendly when he was coaching Watford’s youth teams at the Hornets training ground next to Arsenal.

“I know Steve Bould quite well. I have a lot of respect for him," he said.

“He was a youth team coach when I was a youth team coach. I rang him and said can I come and have a cup of coffee, so we met in Starbucks and we had a chat about players in general, careers, etc etc, and I have kept in touch.”

When the two teams met at the Emirates Stadium at the start of November, a match which saw Arsenal run out 3-0 winners, Dyche spent half in an hour in Wenger’s office after the game.

"I had 30 minutes with him and there were some things that he said that stuck with me to this day,” he said.

“It would be brilliant if there was something he told me that I used against him... now there’s a twist in the tale.”

It would be quite a story if Dyche came out on top in today’s meeting of managerial minds, but whatever happens you can be sure he will be looking to pick Wenger’s brains a little more once the final whistle sounds.