See you again next year

Last updated : 27 April 2010 By Tony Yates
Brian Laws - the board must give him the transfer funds
But that was never going to happen, was it?

The build up to the game didn't bode well. I found out that Phil Dowd had been given the referee's job in place of Martin Atkinson who had been sent to the Birmingham game. Every time that I have witnessed a Phil Dowd game this season I have been very disappointed in him. You cannot referee a game if you are not fit and he clearly isn't. He got some major decisions wrong on Sunday and whilst we would still not have won if he had got them right he did us no favours.

Back to our team. We played very well at Hull and thoroughly deserved the win. We battled, we played football and the players looked as though they had passion and cared. Our fans were the same.

At Sunderland we were poor and thoroughly deserved the defeat that would surely lead to our relegation. The players looked half hearted. Our fans were quiet.

So to Liverpool at home.

A team and a manager under immense pressure against a manager and a team under immense pressure. The difference is Liverpool have spent millions upon millions on their team and the wages that go with it. We haven't.

We don't have Steven Gerrard or Fernando Torres. The wage bill at our Club is probably less per week than Gerrard earns himself.

So we needed to fight and fight we did. 0-4 flattered Liverpool as we all saw and nobody could question the Clarets commitment to the cause. A fluke of a first goal then too much space given to Gerrard for the second all but relegated us.

The Burnley fans were absolutely brilliant all afternoon and were relentless in their vocal support. With over 10,000 season ticket holders having already renewed for next season the support will continue and must mean so much to the team.

It will be very interesting during the coming months how the structure and team at Burnley evolves.

Will Brian Laws still be in charge in August?

I suspect that he will and if so how much of the parachute money will he be given to invest in players?

If the Board are convinced that Brian Laws is the right man for the job then they must surely give him the transfer funds that they would for any manager. If not, he is clearly not the man for the job.

On a personal note I think that Laws has the right to try and recover what we have lost this season. Our Club has been shafted big time by Owen Coyle who knew exactly what he was doing when we won promotion. He ripped the heart out of Burnley Football Club and Laws has had to rebuild it from scratch. Coyle did what he did because he wants money in his bank account and for no other reason. And he will no doubt do it again.

So here is to the future.

We are debt free and will be handed millions next season.

The Turf will be buzzing when we kick off next season.

Being relegated is depressing but we need to fight back and yet again return to the promised land.

We are down but I'm still positive that we will come straight back up.