Naive Burnley counts cost of mistakes with relegation

Some predictions don't stand the test of time. It is a little over a year since Pep Guardiola declared it was Vincent Kompany's destiny to manage Manchester City.

- RICHARD JOLLY

It seemed likelier that he might take charge of Chelsea or Tottenham first, two capital clubs expressing an interest in hiring him. Instead, his destiny shifted at Tottenham in May 2024; yesterday’s defeat ratified Burnley’s relegation.

Despite a March-and-April revival, it had felt inevitable for months. But for points deductions to Everton and Nottingham Forest, Burnley would have been cast further adrift sooner. Yet if the reality that Luton and Sheffield United, promoted with them, will also book their return tickets to the Championship would suggest they were powerless to prevent it, that the gulf between the economics of the two divisions is too much to bridge, Burnley were a different case.

In its own way, theirs ranks as one of the Premier League’s worst-ever relegations. A team who got 101 points last season, a club who spent over £100m last summer, a side who only got two wins against the 17 established top-flight outfits – their other three were against either Luton or Sheffield United – Burnley should have done far better than this. The £100m relegations are rarities, though Leeds and Southampton were in that group last season, but this year Burnley are in a weaker bottom six, with a mere 24 points.

Their season has been an exercise in naivety. They were naive in the transfer market, naive on the pitch and, by extension, naive in the boardroom. Their campaign may have been summed up by two results: home and away defeats to Sean Dyche’s Everton. They lost at Turf Moor because of set-pieces. They were beaten at Goodison Park because of a ludicrous mistake by Aro Muric. Dyche, Kompany’s famously pragmatic predecessor, is also his opposite: he earned Everton twice as many points as his old club mustered, even if their 48 was reduced to 40 by deductions.