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The sub-title of the newest Burnley book "Success and Failure at Burnley Football Club" became even more appropriate. It was a season of successes and failures. Alas the failures outweighed the successes. Had it been the other way round we'd have been in the top six. And not just results, amongst the players from week to week there were successes and failures. Arguments took place all season as to the merits of Wallace, Cort and Iwelumo, not to mention Bikey and Carlisle at centre-back. Eagles too provoked argument. On form he was unplayable but off form there were games when nothing went right. Overall, did he flatter to deceive or was he the key player? Was Wembley hero Elliott a spent force? Have we seen the last of the unique Graham Alexander as a player? Questions, questions, questions to keep Eddie Howe busy all summer.
The failure at Elland Road was dismal said reports. Yet before that there was a success at Derby that had us purring. Just where did this inconsistency come from? It was there all season and it made no difference whether it was Laws or Howe in control. The first half Burnley performance in the final game at home to Cardiff had Phil Thompson on SKY reaching for his book of superlatives. He settled for describing Burnley as looking like Brazil (the other pundits sniggered). Of course it ended 1-1 with a last minute Bellamy equaliser; another case of let-down once again. Another last-minute surrender of two points. How many times did it happen during the season; enough to throw away the final place in the top six is the answer to that one.
So why was this a season that ended in failure? Sheffield United and Preston would trade places in an instant. Failure for them was relegation. Failure for Burnley was a place outside the top six. We told ourselves we had the players. We told ourselves we had the money. We were told we had the ambition. The players fell over themselves in the final weeks to say they hadn't given up. Didn't one of them guarantee a top six place? They fell over themselves to say how disappointed they were after poor results but they were not giving up yet.
But the truth is they weren't good enough. In some games they turned up and put on a great show. In too many others they were blatantly missing. Several are on high wages and unless they leave will continue to be a drain on club finances. I'll hazard a guess and say Delfouneso was on a five figure salary per week. He scored just one goal. Incoming players were less than convincing - Wallace and Iwelumo; Cort was soon loaned out. But he still belongs to Burnley and you presume he will come back unless someone else takes him on. And surely there are now too many ageing players at the club. There is a younger group but the emergence of youth team players into the squad has been limited - just Lafferty, McCann and Rodriguez over a period of four or five years. Each year we hear there is a good crop lower down coming up. But where are they? What happens to them? On top of that, Gawthorpe plans are on hold and it's reasonable to assume that Barry Kilby will want to reduce the wage bill. Quite how he will do that with so few players out of contract and others on high wages will be some exercise.
Over in sunny Tenerife I looked forward to the Leeds Burnley game. I really thought we'd put on a show and rise to the occasion. A top six place was at stake for God's sake. I'll never learn. What a let down it was. The TV screen was high up on the bar wall; behind me the pool and warm sun with its reviving feelgood factor. I even took a Burnley shirt to wear for the occasion. All of the bar staff and waiters were football nuts and knew of Burnley from the previous Prem season.
Sadly it was difficult to find anything praiseworthy at all about the performance. Where was the side that tore Derby and Middlesbrough apart? I really couldn't believe how poor it was and it wasn't as if Leeds played silky classy football. It was biff, bang, wallop stuff; get stuck in, play with physical determination, don't let the other side settle. Their goal was the result of a long, diagonal defence-splitting pass rippling across the turf that was either brilliant or just hopeful, depending on your point of view. It dissected the two stricken Burnley defenders with surgical precision. It was about the only thing of note Leeds did all afternoon. After that there was only one winner. Burnley were just outmuscled and outsnarled. It was pretty much Jensen who stopped a rout. In short, a brittle Burnley just bottled it at Leeds of all places. It was as if they were beaten before they even came out.
Maybe it could have been different when Iwelumo was manhandled, dragged, held down, so blatantly by the defender that even I could see the penalty from a few thousand miles away. The barstaff were incredulous. But not so an incredibly dimwitted referee who judged that this was perfectly fair. Iwelumo gets more than his share of criticism, but to be fair to him he has been dragged down in the penalty area this season more times than any other Burnley player I can ever remember, and yet referees have waved play on. Add those possible penalties to last minute goals conceded and there's another reason for the disappointment this season has brought.
And so to the Cardiff game. It was fitting that Rodriguez scored the goal. The Bikey pass was sublime. It was a shame that the odious Bellamy scored the Cardiff leveller. It was kind of fitting that it ended 1-1 a sort of metaphor for the season - promise turning to disappointment.
Maybe we expect too much. This was a season that included a managerial change. It has to be said it was a change that most people wanted. It was a change that could have been made at the end of last season but wasn't. From the moment Brian Laws took over he was in an unenviable position facing players who'd had the rug pulled from under their feet by the guy who walked out, and fans who were totally surprised by the appointment.The history books might reveal in some detail one day just what he had to contend with. If the players had the rug pulled from under their own feet, I'll always suspect there were players who then pulled the rug from under Laws' feet. In more than just a few games in the Prem season the finger of blame (and a national journalist I know) pointed at down-hearted players not Laws.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Laws appointment in the first place, you still wonder just how much he was let down by sulking and uncooperative players. Jensen's comments in his book were revealing. He wrote that some players simply spat out the dummy and a lousy attitude affected the squad. It's there in black and white what we suspected all along. It's possible it never went away even into the new season when they couldn't win away, or string two consecutive wins together. Is that the players' fault or a manager who couldn't gee them up (be it Laws or anyone else).
On the final day as I watched SKY Sports and QPR and the other teams in the play-offs I wondered if I'd feel any real sense of envy at their success, or disappointment at Burnley's failure. I actually didn't feel either. Truth is we were never ever really good enough this season. A top six place never ever looked likely as we headed towards December. What I did find myself thinking was that it was only a year since we played the last Prem game. Somehow this last one has seemed longer than usual and the longer it went on there was a kind of increasing realisation and acceptance that this was going to be a wasted season - transitional the preferred word in some quarters.
On the other hand, if next season is successful, then you could argue that that the appointment of Eddie Howe means that this season has not been a waste. But there's that word "if" the biggest word in football. If we hadn't thrown away two-goal leads so often, if penalties had been awarded when they should have been, if Burnley had scored instead of hitting the woodwork so often in the first weeks of the season, if Alexander had not missed the penalty against Bristol City, if Burnley had actually turned up at Leicester, Bristol and Leeds, if Burnley had got more shots on target... you could go on all night. But overall, at the end of the season, the table says the teams above us were better than we were.
So: onto 2011/12 and trips to Brighton and Southampton, West Ham again it looks like; but no trip to Preston or Sheffield United. Two years ago at Wembley Burnley and Sheffield were level-pegging and look where Sheffield are now. Their fans must be shell-shocked. Without that lifesaving Wembley win it could so easily have been us that went on the downward spiral. That's a good enough reason maybe to be happy with 8th in the Championship. Burnley still have three more seasons of parachute money including another £16million next season. That doesn't make relegation impossible, but it does make it unthinkable.
A 1-0 win over Cardiff to mark the last game would have been nice, but in a way the 1-1 was a reminder of the vast amount of work that needs to be done to make this a team that can score goals at one end, or at least get more shots on target; and keep them out at the other with defenders who will be a lot more dependable than they have been this season.
Eddie Howe thinks he has a good squad; Paterson, a properly fit McCann, Austin should make a difference. He thinks all it needs is some tweaking but there is no word on where Cork will be. We shall see. Come August we'll all be ready and rarin' to go again.