Same Again, Please

A new manager has been appointed, and a new backroom team has arrived to join him. Five new players have arrived at the club, to replace the legion which moved on at the end of last term. We have a new captain, and a new approach incorporating masseurs and ice-baths.

The appointment of Steve Cotterill has undoubtedly injected a freshness into Burnley Football Club. Having arrived with a sound reputation, he has so far exuded authority and efficiency in getting his version of the future up and running. Without a team or a staff on the first day, and with barely any preparations in place for pre-season, Cotterill has addressed each in turn to ensure the club reaches the starting grid as at least a fighting unit.

Perhaps buoyed by the promise shown in this embryonic stage of Cotterill’s Burnley career, some are predicting great things for the coming campaign. Others, taking a guarded look at the size of the squad, swing towards the other end of the scale – whilst the answer, as usual, lies somewhere in between.

Indeed, just as last year, it is incredibly difficult to predict where Burnley will wind up this season. With a fair wind, and a phenomenal amount of luck on the injury front, the final analysis could look quite healthy. But should the side be decimated by injury – and more to the point, should Robbie Blake suffer a long term injury or lapse in form – then we will be well and truly snookered.

And although it would seem fair to assess that the new supremo’s acquisitions – Danny Coyne, Michael Duff, Frank Sinclair, John McGreal and Micah Hyde – look to be an improvement on last seasons offerings (to refresh your memories, Brian Jensen, Mo Camara, Lee Roche, David May and loanee Luke Chadwick), the suspicion remains that Burnley will be far more reliant on one man than can be healthy. Glen Little may not have produced the spine tingling performances which we once came to expect quite so often last year, but his influence remained significant. His accurate passing and ability to retain the ball, allied with a reputation which could be relied upon to take one defender out of the game, were crucial ingredients in Robbie Blake’s success last season.

Whether Micah Hyde – the one attacking player to have been brought in over the summer – will prove as effective a foil for the former Bradford man, only time will tell. He is quite clearly a class act, but he is genuinely a central midfielder. With Hyde, Chaplow and Grant all indispensable to the team and by instinct central players, the side may lack the width to allow the likes of Blake to prosper down the centre. The continued appearance of Lee Roche on the right wing is every bit as unfathomable as any decision to play Graham Branch as a centre half, and betrays a real lack of options in this position.

Michael Duff and Frank Sinclair - two of the new defensive signings

Nevertheless, the signings of Sinclair, McGreal, Coyne and Duff will, with luck, bring an unfamiliar solidarity to the Claret’s rearguard. One remaining concern might well be a lack of height at the heart of the defence (none of Coyne, McGreal and Sinclair measure six foot), there ought to be fewer of the kind of embarrassing errors which have become the side’s Achilles heel in recent campaigns. Good teams are based on a solid foundation, and this alone may be sufficient to keep the side afloat.

Yet any reasoned analysis of the Clarets personnel and prospects may well prove useless should a couple of injuries bite. With effectively only 13 senior players – one of whom has less than a season as a first team regular under his belt – Cotterill is taking one almighty gamble on escaping with a minimum of absentees. His decision to sacrifice a player in order to strengthen the backroom staff may be labelled as progressive, but should the first team wear an unrecognisably youthful look once autumn bites, it may well look foolhardy.

Yet before I start sounding unduly pessimistic, this is early August, and it’s a time for optimism. So here goes. This is a well prepared Burnley team – and it arguably has the best back-up operation of any Clarets outfit in history. Against Everton, albeit against disappointing opposition, the Clarets more than matched their Premiership counterparts. The ball was played on the floor, and Hyde, Chaplow and Blake combined neatly on occasions. As Cotterill ingrains his messages in his players, that understanding ought to become greater, and so should the rewards.

With an astute use of the loan market to bolster his squad and, if finances allow, a new addition or two at key moments during the season, we could be quite respectable. Not promotion threatening, but capable of beating good teams on our day, and not giving things away. Having rebuilt the team so comprehensively, we need to learn to walk before we run.

So where will we finish? To be truthful, no idea. But at a guess, lower midtable. Somewhere between 16th and 20th. So roughly comparable to last year and the year before.

But there is now a sense that we have bottomed out, and are moving upwards again. And that optimism will take supporters a long way. Far enough to accept another season of achieving very little if it has the promise of brighter skies ahead.