THE fixture list has a habit of throwing up little quirks and it has done so again with Sean Dyche’s return to former club Watford tomorrow just days after Graham Taylor’s funeral.

Dyche was at St Mary’s Church, in Watford, on Wednesday as football paid an emotional farewell to Hornets legend Taylor, who died on January 12 at the age of 72.

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Burnley boss Dyche was handed his first job in management at Vicarage Road by Taylor, who in the summer of 2011 was chairman of the club he had served with distinction as manager over 15 years in two separate spells.

“It was a great day, the way it was delivered and the way it was taken care of was fantastic,” Dyche said of former England boss Taylor’s funeral.

“They’re not easy affairs, not when it was someone who was so big from what he has done in the game, in the media world, and particularly in that location. I thought it was handled fantastically well by all.”

Dyche was relieved of his position in charge of Watford following a takeover. He had also played for the club and worked his way through the coaching ranks there.

But he will ‘park’ any emotion when the game kicks off.

“I played there, I was youth coach, assistant manager and first team manager. I’ve got a fair connection there,” he said.

“I respect all the clubs I’ve been at but they get parked quickly, because you have to move on.

“There’s an attachment to the fact I had some very good years at the club and for a year with Graham, but it’s parked before we play them on Saturday.”

The trip to Hertfordshire is Burnley’s latest chance to claim that first elusive win away win of the season.

In terms of performance the Clarets have been edging closer recently, losing 2-1 in successive away games to Tottenham, Manchester City and Arsenal, and giving all of the title challengers a difficult game.

“You’ve got to look at performance levels overall. We’d all take a lucky win but there’s no real future in a lucky win every week,” said Dyche.

“West Ham you’re scratching your head thinking how didn’t we get something from that? Arsenal is the same, that was out of our control, as was Tottenham. They’re deemed excuses at the time but they had an effect on the outcome.

“A manager can get in excuse mode as well and you look so far at things that aren’t going for you that you forget what is going on. If you take those excuses away the performances were still good, but you’ve got to turn them into wins.

“Get the performances right and you get your rewards from that. There’s been a difference in performances.

“The balanced view is some of it is down to us growing and maturing as a team from the beginning of the season when we simply didn’t play well enough to get anything from the away games,” he said.

“We took a real big shift at West Ham and Tottenham when it began looking like a side who were going to get things and delivering a performance that gets things.

“The performances over the last four away games have been a big shift from the early season.”