Adrian Heath believes former club Burnley have a strong chance of remaining aloft in the Premier League this season.
The Orlando City SC head coach spent time at Turf Moor as both a player and manager in the 1990s, taking the reins as playing coach in 1996/97, following a successful playing stint between 1992 and 1995.
Heath recently spoke with tribalfootball.com regarding the plight of the Clarets, who under Sean Dyche, currently sit one point out of the relegation zone ahead of the weekend's meeting with West Bromwich Albion.
The former Stoke City, Everton and Manchester City midfielder was full of praise for the work Dyche, and former Burnley boss Owen Coyle, have done for the Lancashire outfit who returned to top flight football in 2009 after more than three decades in the lower leagues.
"He (Dyche) did an incredible job to take them up. I think it's very similar to when Owen (Coyle) took them up," said Heath.
"Owen had that incredible year when it seemed like the team stayed the same every week. They didn't have many injuries.
"What the pair of them have done, to get Burnley into the Premier League with the resources they have had, has been incredible.
"If he (Dyche) keeps them up, he has to be up for Manager of the Year. If he can keep Burnley in the Premier League, and that's not a knock on Burnley because I had two or three of the best years of my career there, but they are a small club in relative terms to the clubs around them.
"A few years ago, Man City were struggling but now look at them. These clubs spend more on their youth academy than clubs like Burnley spend on their first team so if they could manage to stay up this year it would be an incredible feat.
"They look as though they are just going to make a bit of a fist of it. At the beginning it was a little bit tight but they have had a couple of good results and they are doing well against the teams around them which is really important.
"Nobody expects them to beat Man United but you might expect them to get the better of Leicester, QPR or (Crystal) Palace, these types of sides."
For breaking stories and all the great banter like us on Facebook: facebook.com/tribalfootball