There was a passage of play yesterday on 65 minutes that typified our performance. One after the other we put seven excellent challenges in. Yedlin, Richie, Dummet, Shelvey, Perez, Atsu then Dummet again that left Mahrez on the floor. Brilliant commitment from them! Kamara was raving about it!
I know, sods. If there's some clever bugger who can post the clip on here, it's well worth a watch. We stopped off at a pub in ratby, just outside Leicester before the game. 50 of us, the landlord couldn't believe his luck, they made enough bait for 150.
Good away performance. We were poor in possession but our defending was magnificent. We were set up well but more than anything our commitment to throw ourselves in the way and defend for our lives was great to see. It reminded me of that run at the start of the season when we finished 5th. We went 11 games unbeaten and they were a few games where, but for the likes of Simpson, Raylor, Saylor etc battling away making goal line clearances, we'd have lost. Like that we just battled all afternoon. I can't imagine many teams go to Leicester nowadays and out battle them. That's us safe now. I always said we would be but we've got it done in double quick time. We can relax now and look to kick on. There is so little between the teams after Burnley, anything from 8th downwards is possible. Rafa would rightly be up there with the likes of Howe, Guardiola, Klopp for manager of the year. However it will be a travesty if Sean Dyche doesn't get it. Their points haul is ridiculous given the squad and money he has. He has a net spend over 2 seasons of 40m (only spent 63m in total), made a profit last summer of 11m, and is only 5 points behind Arsenal after 32 games.
I'm not so sure, he's English and that is unfashionable in football. Certainly International League of Nations PL football anyway.
Sean Dyche IMO is at his level. He is perfect for a club at the level of Burnley where he can manage and bring on a particular type of player. Dare I say it I would have him in a heart beat if Rafa did decide to move on after this season. The top 6 clubs will never go for someone like Dyche mainly because its not fashionable but the last time someone stepped up to that level was Moyes and that was a disaster. Having said that he was never going to do as good as Fergy and I still think he got sold up the river!
Dyche will be at Everton next season, no question, and he'd be absolutely mental not to cash in this year. Burnley will go down sooner rather than later. Expect either Southampton or West Ham to go after Eddie Howe. Wouldn't give Klippety the MOTY trophy, too many poor performances. Dyche for me above Guardiola. You could give Allardyce £400m to spend and he'd win the league.
I reckon Dyche will stay as they look likely to be in Europe unless Southampton win the FA Cup. How many managers will be able to say they led Burnley into Europe? Mind that could be the thing that breaks them too! They only have a wage budget of about 37m. They are one of the lowest. I think they are something like 3rd bottom in terms of average wage per player too (Huddersfield and Brighton are the bottom guys on that front - Huddersfield way off the norm). While this makes it all the more impressive what Dyche is achieving, it also highlights how stretched they would be by a requirement to increase quality squad depth. Not wishing bad on Burnley but I do think you have to be careful what you wish for. Remember us in 2012 after finishing 5th? We didn't have the money to increase our quality in line with requirements. Ended up 16th! I seem to remember the manager got cut no slack. Maybe Burnley fans would be more realistic than ours but PL football now is extremely cruel to the have nots.
Think we did have the money. We just decided not to spend it. After all we did make a significant profit that year. Burnley will probably be in a similar position this year. They will receive ~125million if they finish 7th from Sky money. They will have significantly lower gate income than us but if wage bill is 3rd lowest then expect they should have a surplus to spend. Question is do they go for quality signings to strengthen first team or more squad players to cope in multiple competitions.
By the way I didn’t check we actually made a profit that year because I believe we are now playing by Pouchy Rules.
