Premier League

Burnley head into the Championship facing a perfect storm of problems after leveraged buy-out

Josh Brownhill of Burnley, during their game against Newcastle

With revenues set to fall, a loan to be repaid, no manager and a squad that needs a rebuild, Burnley are paying a heavy price for relegation.

 

When the full-time whistle blew at Turf Moor at the end of the season, the television cameras panned across a familiar tableau of images. Some of the players were slumped on the pitch, while others tried to summon themselves to offer a desultory goodbye to the fans who’d stayed in the ground. They lingered upon those whose emotions had got the better of them, and upon dazed-looking staff.

It hadn’t been like this in 2015, when they were relegated before. They bounced back the following season as winners of the Championship. This time, it felt somewhat different. Burnley is a very different club to the one that was relegated seven years ago, and this time around the in-built advantage that relegated clubs have in the Championship as a result of Premier League parachute payments seems unlikely to benefit them much, so a quick return is far from guaranteed.

Indeed, if there’s any impression we can take of the club as they tumble down into the Championship, it’s just how hollowed-out they may look in just a few week’s time. Burnley have no manager, an ageing squad with a number of players out of contract, and several more who are almost certain to leave to stay in the Premier League. And on top of all of that, there’s the small matter of the debt taken out to fund the takeover of the club in January 2021, which needs to be repaid.

Despite a reasonable record (which was a substantial improvement on the points-per-game tally of his predecessor), it doesn’t seem particularly likely that Mike Jackson will be offered the managerial position on a permanent basis. The name that has been repeatedly mentioned is Vincent Kompany, the former Manchester City captain who’s been cutting his coaching teeth this last couple of years in Belgium with Anderlecht.

The problem here is that Anderlecht haven’t exactly been…

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