SEAN Dyche believes Paul Robinson is as fit as he’s ever been after the veteran stopper made his first competitive appearance in more than two years against Manchester City.

The 37-year-old made his Clarets debut in the 2-1 defeat to City after Tom Heaton’s run of 142 consecutive league starts came to an end due to a calf injury.

Robinson hadn’t made a competitive appearance since his last game for Blackburn Rovers 802 days previously, but he showed no signs of rustiness to impress, making two smart saves to deny Sergio Aguero.

Dyche was full of praise for the former England goalkeeper, as well as third choice Nick Pope, who was elevated to the bench in the absence of Heaton.

“I think he’s different class,” Dyche said of Robinson.

“I see him training every day, he’s as lean and fit as he’s ever been, he’s mentally clear on what he needs to do, he’s calm with his years of experience, and his save in the first half is top drawer, for any keeper, age goes out the window.

“I must give a mention to Nick Pope, who I feel is going to be a big keeper, well he is, six foot six, but he’s going to mature into a really good keeper.

“Working with these two guys (Heaton and Robinson), who are a little bit older and more experienced, will help him develop. There’s a real strong clutch of keepers here.”

Dyche was forced into making two changes just before the interval when Dean Marney and Johann Berg Gudmundsson limped off. Scott Arfield and James Tarkowski came on at that point, with Ashley Barnes introduced in place of Steven Defour late in the second half.

Dyche was happy with the impact his substitutes had, but admitted he would have liked to have got Andre Gray onto the pitch as well.

“The injuries didn’t help, but the changes did really well,” he said. “I think we have a good mentality from the bench, they come on active, ready to make a difference. I would have liked to have got Andre on, but we ran out of subs.

“I wanted him to go at their two centre halves and use his sharpness, but we couldn’t.

“There’s still things we can add and change, we were unlucky with injuries, we would have changed the format late on but we couldn’t.”