A few months ago, I read that Jose Mourinho had given a talk at a Managers’ seminar. His subject was the importance of turnovers – the moments in a game where an attacking side loses possession and is vulnerable to a swift counter-attack.

Mourinho’s point was that, in modern football, managers are tactically astute, teams are well organised and defences are difficult to break down. Turnovers represent golden opportunities, where opponents are out of position and gaps can be exploited. This is the case even when the ball is won at the edge of one’s own penalty area.

You only have to look at how swiftly Chelsea move the ball upfield after a turnover to realise the importance that Mourinho places on this aspect of the game. In fact, of the big four clubs, it is only Liverpool who don’t show this formidable killer instinct when opponents lose the ball. Arguably, it is their lack of ability on the counter-attack that has separated them from the other three and has prevented them from challenging for the League title.

Chelsea also show their awareness of the counter-attack when they happen to be on the receiving end. When they lose the ball, you will often see a Chelsea player give an immediate tug or a trip to an opponent, even when they are well upfield and in no immediate danger. Fouls in that position rarely result in bookings, but can be very disruptive to the opposition.

For most of this season (and a good part of the previous two), we have shown virtually no ability on the counter-attack at all. We have looked nervous in possession, more worried about losing the ball than creating something positive. After we win the ball, instead of rushing forward to receive a forward pass, players have been hanging back, scared of being out of position if or when we lose possession.

The result has been the team moving backwards rather than forwards, and promising turnovers have been wasted by a series of sideways and backwards passes until the ball ends up back with the keeper. In fact, there have been games when the thought has occurred to me that we look more comfortable when the opposition has the ball.

Part of the problem has been the pressure that the players are under. At the moment, we’re a big club without a team to match, and the burden of expectation can weigh heavily. The result has been over-conservative decision-making. We’ve also been unable to solve the central midfield problem, where we have a holding player in Parker and a playmaker in Emre playing side by side, with no-one making a decisive run forward. I’m not convinced that we should have got rid of all three of Bowyer, Ambrose and Jenas – midfielders who liked to make runs into the opposition penalty area.

On top of all that, we’ve had a crisis with our strikers. Roeder hoped to be able to use Milner and Luque as back-up strikers, but they both lack the pace and strength needed. There have been long-term injuries to Owen and Ameobi, and Martins has had a spell on the sidelines as well. Altogether, it has been very difficult for the team to establish any real forward momentum after gaining possession.

And in my opinion, this is the reason why the arrival of a rejuvenated Dyer has been so important to us. He is a player who wants the ball, and is eager to take on responsibility. In possession, he gets the ball moving forward, committing defenders and opening up gaps for his team-mates. Above all, he has the pace to make a counter-attack dangerous.

After we took the lead in the Portsmouth game, it was refreshing to see that we were far more like to score on a counter attack than the opposition were to break us down. In previous games where we have gone ahead, we have been driven further and further back, with no capacity to punish the opposition for committing so many men forward. As a result, a number of leads have been lost.

Dyer has been criticised for not being able to pass, shoot or head the ball, and those faults are probably still there. He still tends to run twenty yards and pass the ball for five, rather than run five yards and pass for twenty.

But, this time round, his running with the ball has been extremely effective, and he has rarely lost possession, despite attracting close attention from would-be tacklers. His judgement of situations, of when to release the ball and how to avoid blind alleys, has improved immeasurably. You wouldn’t expect an improvement like this to occur to a player who’s been out injured – the difference must be in his head, and in his general composure.

Perhaps because he has been given a more forward role, he has also given up the irritating habit of dropping deep to take the ball off the toes of the back four. He seems to have a much better awareness of how he can damage the opposition, and is resisting the temptation to try to do other players’ jobs. Maybe Roeder deserves some credit for introducing a better focus to his game.

Even when we are not actually counter-attacking, his energy in making himself available for the ball is helping us to maintain a passing game, and allowing us to keep the momentum of an attack going, even when the opposition has got behind the ball. At last, the man in possession seems to have options ahead of him.

And perhaps most of all, Dyer has given his team-mates a lift psychologically. They see a confident player who is eager to drive forward, and that kind of positive spirit can be infectious. The tough-tackling Parker may be the Captain, but Dyer is the man who has really got his team-mates believing in themselves again.

Early days, but it seems to me that the bling-boy isn’t a boy any more. Welcome back.