ARSENE Wenger raised a 'wry smile' when Sean Dyche told him the wage bill he was working with this season as the two shared a drink after Arsenal's 3-0 win over the Clarets at the Emirates Stadium last Saturday.

Wenger was complimentary to the Clarets when talking to the press after the game, with the Gunners taking 70 minutes to break down a stubborn Burnley defence, and he reiterated that praise to Dyche when the two met, along with Wenger's assistant Steve Bould, after the game.

"Arsene Wenger was fantastic afterwards," said Dyche, "I had half an hour with him and Steve Bould and he had a wry smile when I told him the kind of wage bill we have, he found that quite interesting against his own. Our market is a different one.

"I've known Steve Bould from when we were youth team managers, and always got on, we used to chat about young players."

The two managers also spoke about their respective squads, and Dyche said Wenger had clearly done his research on the Clarets.

But he decided against sending two-goal hero Alexis Sanchez on loan to Turf Moor to solve Burnley's goal scoring troubles.

"We spoke about everything on Saturday," added Dyche, "about his side, their performance, some key facts he knew about us - we'd had as many key passes into the box as they had up to last weekend, but we haven't got a Sanchez, who has a regular habit of popping it in the back of the net.

"He didn't want to loan him to us!

"But he is a very wise manager offering a young manager some ideas, stories, asking about each other's players, the market, our financial base, what we're trying to achieve.

"He was very open and I enjoyed it."