Did we change too much or too little?

[superdimitri]

I've seen countless posts on here stating our poor season was down to changing too much and that lsst seasons team could have been better than this seasons.

But thinking about it, personally I feel we didn't really change enough and those that we did change just haven't been good enough.

The gap in quality so so big that you can storm the championship and still need to replace your entire team to stay up.

I used to be a believer of keeping everyone you were promoted with with a few quality additions but now I feel like the strategy of rebuilding a whole new team of higher quality players is necessary. Certainly to stay up more than one season.

What do other people think?

[quoonbeatz]

We changed too much, too soon, no question about it. I don't think anyone can say last years team would have fared better overall but you give yourself a better chance, a better starting point because those players are used to playing together, used to the systems and on a high from winning the league by miles.

[SirBob]

We bought too many players with an eye on the future. We needed players to make an impact now. I am confident that most of our signings will prove to be successful in the long run but at the cost of relegation in the short term. It was clear we needed full backs and a couple of additions to midfield as well as a striker.

Instead we signed wingers and an unproven goalkeeper.

[claptrappers_union]

Changed too quickly... The likes of Zaroury, Benson, Muric should still be involved. Let the new signings earn a place in the starting XI. Only Sander Berg is a new player who should've been a starter.

[RVclaret]

The amount of change has been absolutely fine, just a bit unbalanced and lacking physicality needed for this level (which we’ve clearly gone to rectify in Jan). If we had these 3 signings since the start we’d be over 20 points right now.

[NickBFC]

Too much change, too soon IMO. An alarming lack of experience at this level is also hugely to blame. I think last season's side with a couple of quality, experienced additions would have been fine.

[Dark Cloud]

I've no problem with the amount of change if it enhanced us ready for the hugely increased challenges of the PL, bearing in mind that I believed VK would know which players can look great in the Championship without having what it takes to cut it in the PL. What went wrong however was that we simply brought in more players in the same mould. We've swapped like for like. Good players no doubt at the level below, but not PL standard and we could be regretting it for many years to come unfortunately.

[CrosspoolClarets]

Changed too little. Full backs were obvious deficiencies, Taylor a capable stand in but prevents VK doing his preferred style. Defensive midfield another obvious one we all identified in the summer. Strengthen those, and, I would argue, buy Tella for RW, and I reckon our season would have been different.

I can see why VK buys who he can when he can, such as too many LW, because it is a nightmare getting anyone over the line. He has made obvious errors though, but not unforgivable ones so whatever happens he should still be here in a year.

[Wokingclaret]

The amount of change has been absolutely fine, just a bit unbalanced and lacking physicality needed for this level (which we’ve clearly gone to rectify in Jan). If we had these 3 signings since the start we’d be over 20 points right now.

It hasn't been fine absolutely fine, its been absolutely terrible.

Unfortunately too late on the January rectification.

[Big Vinny K]

The amount of change has been absolutely fine, just a bit unbalanced and lacking physicality needed for this level (which we’ve clearly gone to rectify in Jan). If we had these 3 signings since the start we’d be over 20 points right now.

That’s a bold statement given one of them played 30 mins, one 45 mins and one 90 mins.

To answer the OP I think we have made too many changes - not just in the summer but virtually every week since. Was there a statistic that we have changed our defence alone 13 times this season ?!!!

The way VK has changed his starting eleven and his use of substitutes suggests to me that even now as we are in February he is not sure of his best starting eleven. That in itself could be that he has too much choice and too many players with similar characteristics.

[Westleigh]

Too many ballet dancers when we needed muscle men.

[Herts Clarets]

We changed the wrong areas. Needed 2 full backs, a centre back, a central midfielder and centre forward as priority positions to strengthen. Strong spine of the team. We spent heavily on a new keeper, and a plethora of untried wingers in the hope that one of them would become our first 100m player. Neither Vitinho nor Roberts are the answer at RB and it has taken until the end of January to strengthen that position. We have 1 LB who is injured so resort to playing RB and CB in that position, none with any degree of success. We still persist with Brownhill in the middle despite him being part of the midfield 3 from Dyche's last season that were a major contributor to our relegation. History will likely repeat itself in May.

[Sleeping Cat]

We had a team of players who has just spent a whole season playing together, creating familiarity between themselves, overcoming together different scenarios and challenges on the pitch to win the Championship forge a winning mentality along the way.

We then lost 3-4 key players from last years team over the summer. Then we started the season with 5-6 key member of that successful Championship winning team pushed aside. We lost all that momentum, familiarity, cohesion, shared experience and group mentality the existing players had on day 1.

We needed to sign players, no doubt, but they should've been given time to bed in, for their sake and the team as a whole.

[depechedingle]

Luton are doing a lot better than us, very few changes and the ones they did had quality and experience for a fraction of what we paid.

So yes, I think we did a little too much, too many similar and lightweight players and failed to add experience.

[Tricky Trevor]

Not enough experience in the current side. Bought for the future but who knows what that might bring. WW111 could kick off and they all go home to fight for their country.

[aggi]

The amount of change has been absolutely fine, just a bit unbalanced and lacking physicality needed for this level (which we’ve clearly gone to rectify in Jan). If we had these 3 signings since the start we’d be over 20 points right now.

Absolutely fine doesn't really tally with 3 wins and 13 points from 23 games.

[RVclaret]

Absolutely fine doesn't really tally with 3 wins and 13 points from 23 games.

Well it does if you read the rest of what i said.

[Wokingclaret]

Luton are doing a lot better than us, very few changes and the ones they did had quality and experience for a fraction of what we paid.

So yes, I think we did a little too much, too many similar and lightweight players and failed to add experience.

Agree on Luton, we too quickly lost the promotion bounce

[boatshed bill]

Getting promoted with a squad containing 6 loanees was bound to necessitate changes.

[Goliath]

We changed the wrong players and thought we could continue with our style of play for too long.
Unfortunately this relied massively on Cullen who was absolutely dreadful and the back 4 being able to handle the ball and defend in a wide open high defensive line which they proved they couldnt.
Without these elements, changing wingers and strikers is a waste of time.

In hindsight we should have signed a new back 4 and replaced Cullen and then seen what money we had left over for anything else.

[giveusaB]

Should have gone for some premier league experience to survive first season back.
Adding players like Dawson,Barkley and even keeping Barnes for another season would have given us some tough battlers in the spine of the team.Obvious positions that needed strengthening were full backs.Maybe these players wouldn’t have the re-sale value but keeping us in the premier league would have earned us £150 million

[Wokingclaret]

Oh and a set piece coach who has a clue on what he's doing

[boatshed bill]

Should have gone for some premier league experience to survive first season back.
Adding players like Dawson,Barkley and even keeping Barnes for another season would have given us some tough battlers in the spine of the team.Obvious positions that needed strengthening were full backs.Maybe these players wouldn’t have the re-sale value but keeping us in the premier league would have earned us £150 million

Assuming that those 3 players (or similar) may have made sufficient impact.

[StayingDown4Ever]

Should have gone for some premier league experience to survive first season back.
Adding players like Dawson,Barkley and even keeping Barnes for another season would have given us some tough battlers in the spine of the team.Obvious positions that needed strengthening were full backs.Maybe these players wouldn’t have the re-sale value but keeping us in the premier league would have earned us £150 million

We changed far too much with worse players (eg Trafford).

However, I don’t think keeping Barnes would have been sensible - but I would prefer him in the squad to the useless Rodriguez but obviously he’s still under contract.

[daveisaclaret]

Think the answer to the OP question is actually just yes.

Changed personnel too much, changed style of play too little. We've got a lot better (still not good enough) as VK as started to adapt the way we play to the players we now have and the league we're now in but on day one it really was both.

[Blatherwickstattoo]

We changed in areas we didn’t need to and didn’t change In the areas we needed to

[CoolClaret]

We had a team of players who has just spent a whole season playing together, creating familiarity between themselves, overcoming together different scenarios and challenges on the pitch to win the Championship forge a winning mentality along the way.

We then lost 3-4 key players from last years team over the summer. Then we started the season with 5-6 key member of that successful Championship winning team pushed aside. We lost all that momentum, familiarity, cohesion, shared experience and group mentality the existing players had on day 1.

We needed to sign players, no doubt, but they should've been given time to bed in, for their sake and the team as a whole.

It really is this simple -

A lot of the signings we made are no better than what we already have as well, yet still have been preferred for some strange reason.

It's actually staggering when you think about where we are now Vs where we were as a team in February 2023.

Chalk and Cheese.

I'd wager that we could've easily spent half of what we have, concentrated into a few key areas, supplementing the rest with frees and we'd be fairing much better than we are now.

We will never know but to me it feels like every paid signing that we've made has had the potential ROI factored in, rather than just what they could necessarily give the team from the off.

Tella was such an obvious one to make, to not meet Southamptons valuation but sign Tresor/Traff/Amdouni each for a similar price was criminal, imo.

[boatshed bill]

Muric?
Forgetting anything to do with Trafford, did anyone on here genuinely have faith that AM would be PL standard?

[summitclaret]

I quite like Trafford and think he will become a top keeper in time and certainly should continue being first choice, but we should have prioritised other areas. Ditto, we didnt need all those wingers, we needed 2 full backs and a dcm to take over from Corky, including a bit of experience.

We shouldn't have signed Trafford, Tresor and Ramsey.

[Dark Cloud]

We've ended up with a huge squad and I'm struggling to name one who is absolutely, nailed on, no debate, PL standard! I've got one or two "maybes" who could possibly yet convince me (Beyer, Foster, Berge? The new additions?) but essentially it's pointless having a go at players for lack of effort and for failing to hold leads and for garnering 13 points from 21 games and VK constantly shuffling his pack, because we clearly and obviously are not in any way good enough!!! And possibly the most disappointing aspect of that is that VK played at the very pinnacle of the PL and so he of all people should have known what was required and whether players were up to it or not. Very poor from him and that's after he gave me arguably the best season I've ever had watching Burnley. Was he brilliant or just very, very lucky??

[taio]

Changed too much but crucially got the balance wrong in terms of the players/positions we signed and too much focus on potential (including possible growth in value) over experience.

[Carlos the Great]

If we could get our money back on players we bought in the summer ..
We could fill a mini bus

[fidelcastro]

We've ended up with a huge squad and I'm struggling to name one who is absolutely, nailed on, no debate, PL standard! I've got one or two "maybes" who could possibly yet convince me (Beyer, Foster, Berge? The new additions?) but essentially it's pointless having a go at players for lack of effort and for failing to hold leads and for garnering 13 points from 21 games and VK constantly shuffling his pack, because we clearly and obviously are not in any way good enough!!! And possibly the most disappointing aspect of that is that VK played at the very pinnacle of the PL and so he of all people should have known what was required and whether players were up to it or not. Very poor from him and that's after he gave me arguably the best season I've ever had watching Burnley. Was he brilliant or just very, very lucky??

There's no debate on whether Beyer is PL standard. He just isn't. He's been dreadful for the most part this season.

It's also worse than you thought, because we've actually got 13 points from 23 games!

[boatshed bill]

Dark Cloud has it about right.
But I don't think last year's team would be doing any better than the current choices.

[Vegas Claret]

you never rip up something that works, you do little tweaks to key areas and finesse it.
Burnley's approach during the summer

[aggi]

Well it does if you read the rest of what i said.

Well that's a speculative the amount of change was fine, it was just the wrong change.

Obviously it's hard to tell but going from a team with 100+ points in the Championship to this position suggests that something is the problem.

It's not unusual to see teams come up, do a massive overhaul and go back down again whilst other teams do better with more modest changes.

[the_magic_rat]

One big problem is that I'm not sure VK knows what his best team or, if he does, I'm damned if I do.

To add to introducing too quickly, too many untried players at Premier League level , horribly inconsistent form and bad luck with injuries for players who we thought we could rely on, have hampered us too. As for picking the subs bench, I might as well try and buy a lottery ticket. The complete lack of continuity from one week to the next is, I feel, one of the reasons that some fans feel a disconnect from the Team

[Colburn_Claret]

Last seasons team needed a couple of quality signings to shore up midfield and in front of the defence.
The players we bought are good, just not what we needed.
There's no evidence we didn't try to fill those rolls, but if we did we failed.

People pointing the finger at Beyer and the defence, who aren't faultless, fail to account for how other teams defences would cope playing behind our midfield.

[burnley007]

Ask me again in 18 months time...

[NewClaret]

I definitely don’t subscribe to the ‘changed too much’ theory or hanker after players who, whilst very good for us last year, would unlikely have made successful transitions to the prem where the physicality is several levels higher and we know we’d see far less of the ball (Zaroury, Benson). Muric is the only one I think there’s a valid argument that we might have more points had we started, but for the same reason as the other aforementioned, there’s perhaps arguments to the contrary also.

My view is we just didn’t strengthen enough.

We needed:

1. A new RB. We know now we were in for Boey but couldn’t secure.

2. A new LB. Again we know we were in for Maatsen but he didn’t fancy it.

3. A midfield enforcer. Someone to play alongside Berge, dominate the midfield, break up play and good on the ball. Probably not easy to find and I don’t know who fits that bill in our price range.

If anyone feels the same they are also subscribing to the view that more change was needed, or that the same level of change was needed in different areas.

[RVclaret]

Well that's a speculative the amount of change was fine, it was just the wrong change.

Obviously it's hard to tell but going from a team with 100+ points in the Championship to this position suggests that something is the problem.

It's not unusual to see teams come up, do a massive overhaul and go back down again whilst other teams do better with more modest changes.

See the thing I find interesting is how many posters comment on how s**t last seasons best players have been (Cullen and Beyer mentioned on this thread already). I’ve seen reputable posters comment on how Beyer is a ‘really bad defender’ yet there was a poll on here by Jdrobbo last season asking which loan players you want to sign if you could pick one, and Beyer was top/a close second with Tella.

So I am basing my opinion that the amount of change was fine on the basis most of last seasons team have struggled. Mainly with the physicality. Cullen is very small for midfield at this level, Beyer is quite small/less physical than the average PL cb. Therefore I find comments about playing the likes of Zaroury/Benson instead of others interesting, given they are, like the two just mentioned, very small and weak in comparison to their peers at this level.

Then my overarching view is that, while 13 points is clearly very poor if looked at without any type of analysis, we are 4-6 points short of what we’ve deserved / earned in games to be robbed by a game deciding VAR decision as it is, and if we had a genuine back up option for Foster (Fofana), better quality right back than Vitinho (Assignon) and some height/defensive nous at the back (Esteve) all season, we’d have turned some of those tight games (West Ham, Palace, United, Wolves to name a few) into more points. So overall I think the amount of change was needed, but some key and blatant positions weren’t addressed.

[NewClaret]

Last seasons team needed a couple of quality signings to shore up midfield and in front of the defence.
The players we bought are good, just not what we needed.
There's no evidence we didn't try to fill those rolls, but if we did we failed.

People pointing the finger at Beyer and the defence, who aren't faultless, fail to account for how other teams defences would cope playing behind our midfield.

This is spot on. Criticising our defence without considering how they’d fair with better players in front of them isn’t fair at all.

[boatshed bill]

Last seasons team needed a couple of quality signings to shore up midfield and in front of the defence.
The players we bought are good, just not what we needed.
There's no evidence we didn't try to fill those rolls, but if we did we failed

I'm sure we tried to get the right players in. Of course we have no idea when it comes to wage demands, contract negotiations etc.
Maybe had we had Foster and Koleosho starting every game we'd be doing a lot better.

[StayingDown4Ever]

Dark Cloud has it about right.
But I don't think last year's team would be doing any better than the current choices.

Let’s face it, they couldn’t be doing much worse though…

[NewClaret]

I'm sure we tried to get the right players in. Of course we have no idea when it comes to wage demands, contract negotiations etc.
Maybe had we had Foster and Koleosho starting every game we'd be doing a lot better.

This is also true.

We’ve been very unlucky with:

1. Fixtures prohibiting us getting any momentum early doors - we were in trouble before we really played a winnable game.

2. VAR decisions. Arguably denied points at Forest, Bournemouth, Villa and Luton.

3. Injuries. Koleosho, Lyle, Beyer, now Charlie.

That’s not to say no mistakes have been made, just that broader context should also be remembered in to these arguments.

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

Changed way too much. Should have been players who got us up places to lose. We also lost the ‘feel good’ factor that newly promoted teams sometimes get in terms of surprise results like we saw under Coyle for example.
Think Kompany has been very naive (surprisingly given his success as a player at this level) but hopefully he’ll learn from his mistakes.

[Big Vinny K]

My view is we just didn’t strengthen enough.

We needed:

1. A new RB. We know now we were in for Boey but couldn’t secure.

2. A new LB. Again we know we were in for Maatsen but he didn’t fancy it.

3. A midfield enforcer. Someone to play alongside Berge, dominate the midfield, break up play and good on the ball. Probably not easy to find and I don’t know who fits that bill in our price range.

If anyone feels the same they are also subscribing to the view that more change was needed, or that the same level of change was needed in different areas.

Or that less change was needed and that change should have been focused on the areas you mentioned ?

The amount of change we have made also obviously impacts on the amount of money we have spent.
We did need to make a number of changes because of the loan players last season and with Barnes leaving. We also needed to factor in that we were kind of stuck with Jay who had another year left but was out injured for most of the second half of last season.

But even if the view was that Benson and Zaroury may not be good enough for the PL (clearly VK thought this was a risk) we did not need to replace both 2 and 3 times over.

If we were always going to spend circa £100m we could and should have spent that a lot more wisely. Firstly focusing on the areas you mentioned and secondly not buying so many players in positions we were not that weak in the first place.

So yes 100% too many signings, too much change and the money spent in the wrong areas of the pitch.

The results and where we sit in the table are very clear evidence of this.

[NewClaret]

Or that less change was needed and that change should have been focused on the areas you mentioned ?

The amount of change we have made also obviously impacts on the amount of money we have spent.
We did need to make a number of changes because of the loan players last season and with Barnes leaving. We also needed to factor in that we were kind of stuck with Jay who had another year left but was out injured for most of the second half of last season.

But even if the view was that Benson and Zaroury may not be good enough for the PL (clearly VK thought this was a risk) we did not need to replace both 2 and 3 times over.

If we were always going to spend circa £100m we could and should have spent that a lot more wisely. Firstly focusing on the areas you mentioned and secondly not buying so many players in positions we were not that weak in the first place.

So yes 100% too many signings, too much change and the money spent in the wrong areas of the pitch.

The results and where we sit in the table are very clear evidence of this.

If you break that down:

- 3 loans needed replacing to stand still
- 2 Barnsey & Jay needed replacing
- 3 we needed a new RB, LB and CM
- 2 assuming you subscribe to Benson & Zaroury perhaps being too lightweight for the Prem, 2 new wingers needed (not six, I agree)

So assuming everyone subscribes to that, that’s 10 players we needed to replace. You could argue the 11th we didn’t was Muric. Huge numbers regardless.

I agree we bought too many of the same type of players and not enough of others. I think that is a big error and why we are where we are, not the fact there was too much change because I think that was very much needed. And arguably more.

[Herts Clarets]

We will never know but to me it feels like every paid signing that we've made has had the potential ROI factored in, rather than just what they could necessarily give the team from the off.

And that surprises you when the owners have expertise in finance and making money and zero knowledge of running a football club.

[Westleigh]

Getting promoted with a squad containing 6 loanees was bound to necessitate changes.

My memory is going a bit these days but surely only THB ,Tella ,and Maatsen were the only ones that needed replacing,Beyer was a loaner but signed permanently for us .