It's a fantastic job and we are all enjoying the challenges

Last updated : 08 November 2013 By Tony Scholes

Howe steered Bournemouth into the Championship as League One runners-up and his side have made a decent start to the season at the higher level.

Last week he admitted that this was not a game he was looking forward to but admitted today: "There is absolutely no bitterness from my perspective. It was my decision to leave.

"I left wanting Burnley to do well and wanting the team to achieve what it wants to purely for the people around it and all the support we had at boardroom level and the supporters who were very patient with us.

"I'm really pleased for all those people and hopefully they stay at the top of the table and we can try and stay on their tails and be in and around it ourselves. That would be my dream scenario."

He continued: "We have prepared like every other game as we do. It's no different from that perspective. It's only from the media perspective the interest in us going back, but in terms of my players, they have got no interest in that, they want to go there and win the game."

Howe was asked about our former Bournemouth strike pair. He said: "I think they're a really good partnership. They are a big man little man combination, a throwback really in terms of English centre forwards and they've both got really different strengths and weaknesses, but their strengths are really enhancing each other's games.

"Full credit to them for the goals they've scored and how they've played as a partnership. They are a very honest and hard working pair who have certainly covered a lot of miles this season defensively as well.

"We'll work as we do to try and combat their strengths and to try and enhance our own strengths. It will be difficult to stop them and we will certainly have to be at the top of our game defensively, and aware for 90 minutes because their movement and their work rate is second to none."

Dyche celebrated his first anniversary as Burnley manager nine days ago and he said ahead of tomorrow's game: "I rang Eddie and wished him well when he left, and they picked his brains about what he thought was here and what he left. It was only pointers, and I think most managers do that.

"He told me what he thought and then I applied the things I felt we could change in a way we want to go about things. There are things I feel we have changed in-house, but it's not about rights or wrongs; it's about my way of going about my business ad getting the players to believe in that and deliver it.

"Last year there were questions about what I was attempting to do and there were also questions about the players and the staff, but the reality is you have to galvanise your own thoughts and believe in what you do for the betterment of the club and I sleep easy with what we have done here.

"It's a fantastic job and we are all enjoying the challenges in front of us. I like the idea of developing myself and those around me in order to be successful and that's my focus. The challenge is to go again and again and be relentless and that starts this weekend."

The manager finally spoke about his second successive manager of the month award. "I take the award graciously on behalf of myself, my staff and the players and the club," he said.

"It's nice to be recognised but it's the players who inevitably go out and deliver the performances. Myself and my staff just prepare them in what we feel is the right manner and they have done that again, so I am pleased that we've placed another marker down in the history of the club.

"I think it's fair to say people on the outside didn't see us being where we are. We feel we have a group willing to compete at this level, but to be at the top and deliver the performances we have is a difficult task.

"So far, we are pushing a third of the season and they have delivered performances to get us where we are."