Wot 'e sed.tiger76 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 9:41 am
SD has an awful lot of credit in the bank, but that doesn't mean he has limitless time to turn our fortunes around, however 4 games into the new season is far too early to even be considering changing the guard.
...I don't suspect he's (Alan Pace) anywhere close to the stage of contemplating firing our best manager in a generation, just because we've suffered a few early defeats, performances in all 4 games have been decent, and it's mainly individual errors at the back, and our lack of a killer touch in front of goal that's been the crucial difference.
Our results might be no better than at this time last year, but the general level of performance so far certainly have been. To my mind the only realistic replacements suggested on this thread have perhaps been Fat Sam, Howe & Wilder and for my money, Wilder would be the least-worst; I'd far rather have Sean Dyche at the helm than any of those, particularly over the long term.
Will we way stay up this season? I honestly don't know, though I do feel that the signing of Maxwell Cornet signals an intention to keep trying, which for a while I feared may not be the case. We currently have a predominantly old/tired/not quite good enough first team squad which I believe is at the beginning of its transition, but thankfully we're not tied to those players by long/expensive contracts and whilst our summer first team signings weren't (until Cornet) particularly exciting, I do think we picked-up some damned good prospects for the youth sides. The task of our current squad is to inexpensively try and keep us out of the bottom three, but if they fail, then they'll either leave quietly, or re-sign at a salary commensurate with their advancing age, fading abilities and our drop to the Championship, with a primary task of mentoring and playing second fiddle to those youngsters.
Financially we could cope with a 'short term' relegation as well as any and far better than most Premiership clubs and in some respects, a year - or even two - down there might make the transition easier; there we could bring more of those youngsters through and get them playing in the first eleven earlier and they are the ones who will take us forward and if necessary back into the EPL.
Burnley cannot and in the short/medium turn at least, will not attract high level established players other than for those wanting 'one last contract' on their way back down, our future success is vested in those youth squads, because if we can show them that there's an opportunity to ply their trade and perhaps most importantly to the best/most ambitious to get themselves 'in the shop window' then they will be attracted to Burnley and will attract others in their wake, at fees/salaries which we can afford to sustain.
I'd like to think that it's a novel idea, but I vaguely remember a couple of chaps called Lord and Potts doing something similar,a year or two back; was that at Barnsley?