High Hopes
The Baku City circuit in the capital of oil-rich Azerbaijan is six kilometres of city streets turned into a motor racing circuit. Known as the fastest circuit in F1, it’s Monaco-on-the-Caspian and on Sunday 28 April, Valtteri Bottas piloted his Mercedes around 51 laps of the circuit to win, finishing 1.54 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Having driven at an average speed of over 130 MPH for one hour and forty minutes, over 306 kilometres, the difference separating the two at the end was a mere 89 metres.
4,118 kilometres to the northwest on the same day, a distance of just 2.951 centimetres was the margin between victory and defeat. I’m talking of course, about Matt Lowton’s valiant attempt to stop Sergio Agüro’s shot from clearing the goal line at Turf Moor leading to the 0-1 defeat at the hands of champions-in-waiting, Manchester City. As it turned out, it had no effect on Burnley who were all but mathematically safe from relegation by this juncture, but the ‘Butterfly Effect’ would be felt on Merseyside two weeks later. If it were not for this 2.951 centimetres and a draw had ensued, Manchester City would have finished on 96 points, one less than Liverpool, and Jurgen Klopp’s men would be Premiership supremos to add to the Champions League title they will win a few weeks later.
Ifs, buts, maybe’s, would haves, if onlys and the like are all very well and as Sean Dyche is fond of saying, the margins are tight in the Premiership and he only deals in facts. But could it be that football - at one level the simplest game in the world - has become as exacting as the science and the physics that govern Formula One? An imperfect comparison for sure but on this single measure, the margin between success and failure is 3,000 times greater.
The fifteenth place attained by Burnley this season might look like a backward step compared with the giddy heights of seventh place previously and the European adventuring of last summer. Alternatively, it’s a prism of the fractional differences at this level and the major oscillations in fortunes occasioned through minor variations in form.
Previous campaigns have had a discernible shape to them, a trend and a re-countable narrative arc, but thinking back over the last eleven months is like trying to make sense of the random thoughts that occur between deep sleep and wakefulness… The second-worst defensive record before Christmas followed by performing as a Top-6 side afterwards; the dreary, leaden display against Crystal Palace in December as Zaha and Benteke zipped around Selhurst Park making the back four look like out-of-breath veterans… the heroic performance against Spurs and a maddening loss conceded in the dying moments two weeks later. The nadir of Boxing Day against Everton and the unjust howls of derision from the Long Side only to bounce back a few days later with that doughty win over West Ham. And then that extraordinary run of results including two sparkling south-coast performances at Brighton and Bournemouth and watching the Stamford Bridge draw from a bar in Malta that secured a fourth season at the highest level…and then now predictable end-of-season slump. Never a dull moment, for sure…
If it looked chaotic from the outside, Lord only knows what the atmosphere must have been in Turf Moor during the dark days of November and December. And when it all looked to be going horribly wrong again as February turned to March and another string of poor results, the searching questions would no doubt have been asked again. It’s testament to whatever methods have been instilled over the last seven years that survival was achieved, but what next?
Will it be enough for Sean Dyche & Ian Woan to continue on the rollercoaster treadmill of near-death followed by blessed relief, but with no discernible off-ramp? As CEO Dave Baldwin pointed out a couple of years ago at the London Clarets AGM, it costs an unfathomable sum to guarantee Premier League membership and it’s little short of a miracle that Burnley has made it for four straight seasons on an income of just over one-third of what is commonly accepted to be required.
To have achieved what they have without blowing the clubs’ significantly increased income on over-inflated salaries for distinctly average players in the context of the Premiership, must make them ask what glory could be achieved with a bigger budget? Or is their way specific to a club of Burnley’s size or possibly just Burnley? Even during the brief time I spent with them after the Fulham game, it’s clear that they thrive on the juxtaposition of the ‘Local Club for Local People’ vibe, the meticulous application of science and technology and the global platform they now find themselves on. Whether their undoubted talents would work as well exposed to constant media glare that the Top 6 live in is debatable. And more to the point, would they want this level of intrusion? According to media rumour, they are handsomely and properly rewarded for their talents and both seem just too decent and sensible to throw themselves into the Coliseum of Top 6 stewardship, even if these perennially conservative clubs would afford them the opportunity in the limelight they have surely earned.
Let’s hope they stay. And let’s hope that the emergence of Dwight McNeil is a hint at what the investments in the back-office facilities will produce. We hear so much about this but, of course, can never see what it means other than at three o’clock every Saturday or whatever other time or day of the week Sky decides on our behalf. The stark reality is that this is a squad with its best years behind them and a combination of the relentless improvement in the overall standard of the league combined with chronology means fresh talent is needed within the next two years. This is the best case. When the curtain goes up on the 2019/20 season in August, it might be that the entire league has moved up a cog - just as it did last year - and more of the same is just not enough and swift, drastic action is needed. What then? Even though Burnley is now a rich club, it’s not rich enough to buy its way out of trouble.
Lastly, back to the margins between success and relative failure and a thought for Ben Mee. In a recent newspaper article, he expressed a reasonable level of dismay about how he has never been picked for England. It’s difficult not to feel a degree of sympathy for him. Forget his reported pay as this is meaningless. Most Premier League players escape the lower levels of Maslow’s Pyramid at a very early age and are driven purely by success and peer placement. To have performed with such consistency at the highest level for as long as he has deserves more recognition than he has received. It’s inconceivable that other clubs have not expressed interest in him and while we are not privy to the wrangling that goes on over players’ contracts, the fact is he has been loyal to Burnley doing what he does - week in, week out - displaying the command and character we expect from our national team, brings me back to where I started: it's just winners and losers and some get caught on the wrong side of that fine line.