Sean Dyche has been linked with the Leicester City manager’s job eight years after he first emerged as a contender with the club to decide between two wildly different directions

It was nearly eight years ago that Sean Dyche first emerged as a contender for the Leicester City manager’s job and now he’s being linked again.

Admired for his work at Burnley, Dyche was on City’s shortlist to replace Craig Shakespeare in 2017.

The club ultimately went for Claude Puel and so started a process of moving away from the counter-attacking game that had led them to their glorious Premier League title and towards a more fashionable brand of football.

From there, for the majority of the next eight years, City fans mostly saw their team look to keep control of the ball, with Enzo Maresca taking that to an extreme degree.

The idea of appointing a manager like Dyche became to feel like a backwards step. City had moved on and the former Burnley boss no longer fit with what they were looking for.

But maybe that’s not now the case. Perhaps City, and the game itself, have come full circle. Because the gap between the Championship and the Premier League poses an interesting dilemma.

Burnley, under Vincent Kompany, won promotion comfortably by playing a possession-based game. In the Premier League, they continued to take that approach and never really looked like staying up.

It’s true of Southampton this season too. They dominated possession under Russell Martin in the Championship, but that style of play did not bring results in the Premier League and it cost Martin his job.

City, given they didn’t have the continuity of Maresca in charge this season, are difficult to assess on those same terms, but it will be something the hierarchy has to consider if they are thinking of replacing Ruud van Nistelrooy.

With Kompany, Maresca and Martin, there’s now a clear blueprint for a relegated side to earn promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt.

If they keep even half of their squad together, they will have considerably better players than nearly every other side in the division.

They can then use those players to dominate possession and restrict the opposition’s ability to even get on the ball. They can grind teams down, wear them out, and eventually it will show in the scoreline.

But recently, as the gap between the established sides and the promoted clubs grows, continuing that method in the Premier League has not kept teams up.

It’s difficult to suggest, though, that sides play that possession game in the Championship and then switch to a more pragmatic approach in the Premier League.

Firstly, they might not have the players suited to it without buying in a whole new team. Secondly, they’re then starting from scratch with their tactics. The change from Martin to Ivan Juric didn’t make a difference for the Saints.

Maybe, then, a side needs to get promoted playing in a way that does not need to change in a battle for Premier League survival. That would be the argument for appointing Dyche.

Martin has also been heavily linked to the City job and the former Southampton boss and Dyche could not be more different.