MIKE Rigg insists his role at Burnley will be to ‘100 per cent’ support Clarets chief Sean Dyche.

The 49-year started his role as technical director at Turf Moor this week with a focus on recruitment and developing Academy players at the club.

And he was quick to praise the job Dyche has done during his six years in East Lancashire.

“My job, 100 per cent, is to support Sean in his job,” said Rigg.

“I think what he has done in this club is beyond comparison. We are in the toughest league in the world, for the club to actually achieve what it has done, not just to maintaining Premier League status but its run over recent years, has been incredible.

“All I can try and do is try and bring some more structure and organisation and support to enable Sean to function that little bit better.”

Rigg will head up the process of talent identification and recruitment throughout the club, from Academy to first team.

He added: “We’ve got a great Academy and have recruited some great players over recent years and my job is to try and pull all that together.

“We want this to be the hotbed of young players in the North West with the pathway into the first team.

“A big part is recruitment. That is all the succession planning, if we haven’t got the players coming through the system then it is to go out there.

“The club has brought in Ben Mee, Kieran Trippier and James Tarkowski from other English clubs.

“What we are trying to do is stretch that network globally. We are only going to do what every other Premier League club is going to do and that is to compete on a global level to help Sean.”

Rigg will report directly to chairman Mike Garlick and Dyche and said he was hugely impressed with the Clarets duo.

“They were absolutely amazing the pair of them, they were so aligned,” he told Clarets Player.

“What the club has achieved over recent years has been phenomenal but in order to maintain that we can’t stand still.

“It is really important that everyone understands that Sean has the first say (on recruitment), in other words, what do we want? Where do we want it and when?

“He (Dyche) has the last choice and the last say so he says, ‘that is the player that I want.’

“There will never be a player that will be brought into the club, certainly while I am here as technical director, that will be forced on Sean.

“My job is not to pick the players, my job is to give Sean enough options where he says that is the player I want to take us on to the next level.”

The Clarets may be struggling at the wrong end of the Premier League table ahead of the home game with Brighton on Saturday but Rigg says the club is geared up towards being a success in the top flight.

He said: “I think one thing that Burnley has done is to achieve something that was beyond a lot of people’s expectations at the time. Where they finished last year and the European run was incredible.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get to experience any of the European nights. If that comes back – fantastic. But to manage expectations, the Premier League is where we deserve to be and that’s what we’re going to fight for and everything I can do to support Sean will be about maintaining Premier League status.

“This isn’t being negative or not ambitious, but we can’t afford to stand still.”