SEAN Dyche doesn’t worry about Reading first team coach Steven Reid having recently had one foot in the Clarets camp.

“He’ll have a feel of how we work, but then Jason Shackell had that. That’s part and parcel of losing your people to other clubs,” said Dyche ahead of today’s Turf Moor clash, before going on to recall the impact that the former Republic of Ireland international had on his team in the Premier League last season.

MORE TOP STORIES:

“Reido was terrific for us.

“He was well thought of by the staff and the players alike and did a lot of work behind the scenes that fans wouldn’t see, in his manner and how professional he was, his work within the group as being one of them and that sort of thing.

“We wish him well down there but obviously not against us.

“I won’t be speaking to him before but I’ll be speaking to him after.”

The two go back a long way, to when they first met at Millwall. Reid was just starting out and Dyche arrived as an experienced defender with more than 250 appearances under his belt.

Their football paths went in different directions when the latter moved to Watford in 2002. But they were reunited last summer, when Dyche the manager signed Reid the veteran ahead of Burnley’s Premier League season.

Reid signed off his professional career in the final game at Aston Villa, coming off the bench in the 1-0 win.

He had not featured as much as he would have preferred or intended during the campaign. But as far as Dyche was concerned, the right back turned midfield man had done everything asked of him.

“He didn’t have as many minutes as he probably thought (he would), and maybe me at times as well. But what he was good for was his professionalism and his mental strength around the group rubbing off on people in the right way,” said the Burnley boss.

“He’s a real man in the football world and a proper professional.

“It takes a lot to fluster him. He’s a very solid character.”

There were tears when he called time though.

“He got emotional. I gave him a slap with a wet fish afterwards!” laughed the Burnley boss.

“The lads were good with him the night before the (Villa) game, they got him a signed shirt all framed up and all that sort of stuff. He was feeling it then I think and storing it up.

“It’s hard in football, unless you’re ready. When I came out of it there was no big ‘I’m retiring’ because I’d shot it. I knew when it was coming.

“I thought Reidy could have carried on. I don’t know where and at what level he would have chosen to have done that, but he could have. But I think he made a decision that the time is now.

“He was as fit as I’d seen him, he was healthy, he was well and his knees were good, but I think he knew when the time was right.

“I knew a couple of months before. We went and had a chat and had a coffee for an hour. He didn’t start crying then.

“But it’s all right saying it - it’s when you finally admit it, that can be a harder thing to do. Whereas I knew, I’d had a double hernia, I was coming out of Northampton and I’d had a couple of offers to carry on playing but deep down I was ready and a chance opened up that confirmed my decision.

“I may have gone on for another season but the Watford thing opened up with the Under-18s and I went straight in.

“For him it was more a case of making a decision and saying ‘that’s it’.

“It sounds easy but it’s your life, it’s all you’ve known - for most footballers.

“It’s going into the unknown. You make the decision and then your life changes massively because you’re not actively training every game.

“I think he enjoyed it here. Obviously he’d like to play because he’s a footballer and he had that desire, but I think he enjoyed what we’re about and I think he’s taken something from it for his own future now that he’s left and gone into coaching.

“It’s the next best thing for some but not for all, for some it’s not their bag.”

But Dyche does not know whether Reid will make the step up into management, like he did five seasons ago.

“I’ve never really spoken to him in depth about it,” he said.

“He definitely had a thirst to be a coach, we had a chat about that. He never really brought up management.

“Management sometimes comes your way rather than chasing it. It certainly did with me. I wasn’t chasing it.

“I was in the youth team at Watford absolutely loving it, working with young players, trying to flex them into something better for the future and absolutely loved it.

“Although I did think deep down I wanted to manage somewhere down the line it was a natural occurrence - I wasn’t going out chasing it applying for jobs, it all came through a natural timeline for me, and maybe that will happen with Reidy, I don’t know.

“I don’t know whether his end goal is to be a manager. I never really discussed that with him.”