So the season may end with a manager Alan Pace appointed at Burnley winning the Champions League. Not for Burnley, admittedly. These days, Vincent Kompany is more popular in Bavaria than Burnley. His successor at Turf Moor, Scott Parker, emulated him by masterminding promotion but now, too, with a tame relegation. It has been a duller demotion: if Kompany’s attempt to reinvent a club intrinsically associated with Dycheball generated intrigue, Parker’s pragmatism has made relegation less hubristic but also, to outsiders, less memorable.
Manchester City confirmed the inevitable, sending Burnley down with four games to go. For a team who had occupied 19th place for five months, it had long been a question of when, not if. A season always brings games that could have gone differently, matches which can be framed as turning points. Burnley can point to cruel late goals scored by Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham and Brentford and Parker forever talked of fine margins. And yet, in the bigger picture, they were a huge distance from safety and the sheer predictability of their departure from the division is damning.
There have been a litany of lows, even if perhaps the worst came outside the Premier League, with the Turf Moor FA Cup defeat to League One Mansfield. Beyond that, Burnley’s Monday night against Sunderland in February, with their xG of 0.06, was a particular illustration of incompetence.
Burnley have only won four games: two against teams who were in the Championship last season, one against one who will be in it next season, in Wolves, leaving victory over Crystal Palace as the anomaly. Their best results, arguably, were draws: they were admirable but only produced a point apiece away at Anfield and Stamford Bridge and at home to Manchester United. Some of those admirable draws can explain, too, why Parker was not sacked mid-season.
Parker may have the twin reputations of promotion specialist and guarantee of relegation and he is not flattered by a comparison with those who came up alongside Burnley: Sunderland have survived comfortably, and Leeds should. “We have not been able to overachieve,” Parker said. His peers did. Yet focusing on the manager ignores a bigger issue. This is Burnley’s third full season in the Premier League under ALK Capital’s ownership and each has seen them go down. Under Alan Pace, they have gone from a fixture in the Premier League to one forever veering between divisions. And if, relative to resources, they punched far above their weight under Sean Dyche and can appear an anachronism in a top flight dominated by big-city and southern clubs, some of ALK’s spending feels incoherent. If the aim early in the Kompany era was to be good traders, to unearth potential, Burnley are decidedly imperfect at it. Once again, they seem to have wasted too much money. Too few of this squad are likely to generate big offers.
This season, as in 2023-24, Burnley have spent more than £100m on signings. A glimpse at the teamsheet or the performances scarcely indicates how or where; when they went down, Parker admitted they lacked quality. Of the recruits, Quilindschy Hartman and Loum Tchaouna flattered to deceive, promising starts not leading anywhere. Armando Broja has been a predictable failure, scoring a lone goal. Kyle Walker has commanded huge wages but without having the same talismanic impact that, say, Granit Xhaka had at Sunderland.
Arguably Burnley’s only three successful recruits have been Zian Flemming and Jaidon Anthony, loanees in their Championship campaign who they were obliged to buy and who have overperformed to get nine and seven goals respectively (though the winger, again, has tailed off after an encouraging start), and Martin Dubravka, a free transfer with no resale value. The fact he has made by far the most saves in the division, however, is part indictment.
Because when Burnley came up, it was with the best defensive record in the history of the Football League, conceding just 16 goals in 46 league games. This season, they have the worst defensive record in the Premier League, letting in 68.
The watertight formula was not repeatable; perhaps because the opponents were better, perhaps because the personnel was different. The promoted Burnley defence featured CJ Egan-Riley and had an extraordinary shot-saving season by James Trafford, but both left last summer. So did captain and top scorer Josh Brownhill; arguably last season’s Burnley side was better than this season’s, and certainly a more coherent one. That they lost Josh Cullen due to injury in December weakened them again.
And Parker’s team got 100 points last season; the second highest ever among teams who went straight back down again, after Kompany’s 101. That can emphasise the gulf between the top two divisions, or Burnley’s inability to cope with the Premier League. For now, however, it is hard to escape the sense that century meant nothing this season.
It may indicate a third century is on the cards next season; but if Parker has the perfect CV to bring Burnley back up, he also has the baggage of relegation and a growing unpopularity with the fanbase. There is the understandable sense that some of the Burnley faithful are tiring of life as a yo-yo club; and when such clubs settle in a division, it tends to be the lower one, when the string on the yo-yo snaps.
There are also reasons to believe that it will be harder for Burnley to return next season. There could be congestion for places at the top of the table. Two moneyed, ambitious clubs could be in the division, in Birmingham and Wrexham. Either Southampton or Ipswich, equipped with parachute payments, are likely to be. Sheffield United and Norwich hampered themselves with their start to this season and should be stronger next. Middlesbrough might be challenging again.
Then there is Wolves, whose preparations for the Championship started months ago and whose wretched start to this season may prove a benefit for next. Most high profile of all, there is the possibility of Tottenham, maybe West Ham or Nottingham Forest, who would be installed as favourites and who would each have more money and allure than Burnley.
They have felt trapped in their form of purgatory for the last few years. Yet if there is one thing worse than being in the Premier League every two seasons, it might be not being in it at all. A season with just four victories has felt part of a no-win scenario for Burnley.
