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When we imagine a perfect day in the life of Pep Guardiola, we see visions of cashmere jumpers, fine red wines and dinners at Europe's best Michelin-starred restaurants. We hear echoes of intellectual conversation, tinkling laughter and tactical insight that only the greatest of sporting minds could provide. We smell expensive cologne, and bouquets of red roses, and the musky whiff of possession football. Our minds become an urbane paradise, a suave nirvana. We feel the comforting scrape of cultivated stubble against our skin, and we sigh a heavy sigh, for it is the purest of sensory delights.By contrast, we imagine a perfect day in the life of Sean Dyche would involve three rounds of golf, four consecutive hours of Storage Wars and five pints of incredibly strong ale. When he envisions his ideal 24 hours, we imagine the first thing that comes into his head is a timeworn fantasy of storming into an LMA meeting, shouting "BRITISH JOBS FOR BRITISH MANAGERS" and then leading Pards, Pulis and Mike Phelan in an organised storm out, with Eddie Howe tagging sheepishly along behind. We imagine that Sean Dyche dreams of marching into his local gastropub, ordering a Tetley's and then, when the man bun-sporting barman tells him they only do craft beers, going really silent, and frowning, and looking really intense, and then saying in a very slow, threatening voice "TET–LEY–'S", so compelling his terrified server to go across the road and get him some cans.Now, imagine that – ahead of the meeting of Burnley and Manchester City on Saturday – Dyche and Guardiola underwent some sort of magical, Freaky Friday situation, and were forced to live each other's lives. Picture Sean Dyche, desperately trying to wrestle his way out of a bespoke polo neck on the sidelines, wrinkling his nose at the smell of Clive Christian No.1, angrily scrunching up three sheets of tactical infographics having spent the last quarter of an hour holding them closer and closer to his face, like a dad trying to scrutinise inadequate IKEA instructions. Picture Guardiola in turn, anxiously trying to figure out what the markings on the drill bit mean, having to go to A&E after accidentally hammering his fingers while trying to put up a shelf. A Dyche-Guardiola life swap would be comic but, at the same time, it would be wrong on every conceivable level. More than that, it would be to the detriment of the Premier League not to let them express themselves in their natural way.So it must be just after midday on Saturday, when the first game of the weekend kicks off at Turf Moor. Burnley will be rallied under the standard of good, honest, English nous, while Manchester City will be bold and balletic, like Catalan bullfighters dancing around their foes. The beauty of the Premier League is that it encompasses both styles of football and, whoever wins the day this weekend, Dyche and Guardiola both have a place in its broad, inclusive and magnanimous church. After the match, in his hosting capacities as home manager, Dyche can take Guardiola down the men's club, and they can talk tactics over two pints of bitter and a generous spread of chip butties and crisps. Either that, or they could stand about awkwardly in the manager's office for five minutes before saying goodbye with a nod and a firm handshake. Whatever's easiest, really.
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