Small clubs in the big league can’t keep it up, just ask Burnley
MARGINS, margins. Finishing seventh last season, 12 of Burnley’s 14 victories were by one goal. There were six at 1-0, five at 2-1 and a 3-2. That’s tight. No manager, no fan for that matter, is ever happy with a single-goal lead.
Looking back over the campaign, there are probably only two occasions when the locals felt entirely comfortable as the minutes ticked away — November 18, having led Swansea 2-0 since halftime, and 3-0 up at West Ham in March. The rest would have been tense. One goal isn’t so much a cushion as a very itchy eiderdown. No-one is getting any rest.
Meaning there was always a chance that Burnley could be in trouble this year. Not because of the Europa League, or because Sean Dyche (below) has lost it, or the players aren’t working as hard, just because they’re Burnley. And for the majority of clubs in the Premier League these nuances matter.
This time next year, would you place a bet of significance on Bournemouth or Watford — the success stories of 2018-19 so far — not being in the bottom three? it can happen, we all know that. Leicester delivered the most sensational title win in history and sacked their manager the following season because they genuinely feared they would go down.
That is what life is like outside the elite echelons. There are six clubs in the Premier League — Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and probably Tottenham — for whom relegation is now unimaginable. Beyond those, the tiniest alteration in fortune can be the difference between a season of relative glory and doom.
As a former manager of Wimbledon, Watford and Sheffield United, Dave Bassett knew a thing or two about managing small clubs in the top divisions and about the way a single result could change a campaign. He said that when Norwich finished third in 1992-93, the inaugural season of the Premier League, they could easily have ended up fighting relegation with a different start to the season.
To explain — on the opening day, Norwich were 2-0 down to Arsenal at half-time, but came back in astonishing fashion to win 4-2. Bassett’s logic was that if the result had stayed in Arsenal’s favour, or progressed as expected to, say, a 4-0 win, Norwich would then have been under big pressure in their next match, at home to Chelsea.
And Chelsea took the lead after 15 minutes at Carrow Road. Yet, buoyed by their fightback at Highbury, Norwich scored twice in the second half to win — again.
Bassett’s reasoning was that on the back of a firstgame defeat, the early Chelsea goal might have led to nerves in the home fixture and more dropped points. And on it goes, the tension building, the defeats continuing.
As it was, Nor- wich drew their third game, with Everton, but then went on a winning run. Early momentum carried them, the way it has undoubtedly helped Bournemouth this season. Elite clubs will turn a bad stretch around simply because they have good players, but further down the division, Bassett insists the psychological side — momentum versus panic — is defining. He has a point. Last year, Burnley became used to victory in tight matches. By October 1 they had already recorded three league wins by single-goal margins and had drawn away at Tottenham and Liverpool against the odds. On day one of this season, they drew 0-0 at Southampton. A reasonable result, it seems, but the type of game they would have found a way to win a year ago — as they did, with an 81st-minute winner from Sam Vokes. Matches are often tighter than the scoreline looks. Going into the 83rd minute at Fulham this season, Burnley were 3- 2 down, a goal away from equalising. Then Andre
schurrle scored for Fulham to make it seem as if Dyche’s team had been slaughtered.
Even sunday’s defeat at Wolves is a fixture that might have panned out differently 12 months ago. Wolves were a different class and had a mighty 30 attempts at goal, but Burnley defended magnificently, Joe Hart was outstanding — without doubt he is in the top three English goalkeepers again — and, in similar circumstances, we have seen them hang on.
A match at Manchester United in 2016 was certainly little different and Burnley got away with 0-0. Yet their X factor is missing right now.
the results are not coming, the pressure is growing. they are no longer confounders of expectation, they are plain old Burnley. And it’s very hard to be Burnley, or any small club, in the Premier League. the Championship is full of teams — from Middlesbrough to swansea — that were bitten by reality.
Before the season began, Dyche surprised people by referring to his club as ‘the minnow of the Premier League’. How could he say that when Burnley were seventh and in Europe? Yet Dyche knew.
With the spending power of others — and not just those inside the top six — Burnley cannot outrun their circumstances forever. this does not mean their current predicament is permanent, or that they will be relegated — there are worse teams in the league than Burnley — more that this early crisis is no great shock.
Bournemouth visit turf Moor on saturday on a high.
they were behind at West Ham, behind against Everton, but came back to take four points from those games. And now they have momentum, which Burnley must steal, even by the smallest margin.
that is how it is, at the bottom. Nothing is guaranteed for six months, let alone permanent.