Most have likely seen /read this but it’s SD’s updates on player injuries couple of hours ago

Burnley boss Sean Dyche is hopeful that Nick Pope, Robbie Brady and Ben Gibson will all be able to play some part in the remaining two pre-season fixtures but Steven Defour looks increasingly likely to miss the start of the Premier League season.

Defour has not featured for the Clarets since January and subsequently underwent a calf operation.


He returned to pre-season training but has not played any part in the summer fixtures and Dyche admitted the 31-year-old is still not fit.

“Steven’s not close, he’s still recovering, he’s had a couple of niggles and upsets so we’re just having to work with him and wait for his body to get strong enough to join in with us," said the Clarets boss after the 2-2 friendly draw with Wigan on Saturday.

Read all the latest horse based tomfoolery with the Rovers latest match interview

AlargeClaret wrote:Read all the latest horse faced tomfoolery with the Rovers latest match interview

Coyle to Rovers?

I can't see Defour featuring much before Christmas.

FactualFrank wrote:I can't see Defour featuring much before Christmas.

I can't see Defour featuring again.

If Defour was a horse, he’d be Copydex right now.

Looks like his Burnley career could well be over

Defour was a bright star who briefly lit up the Turf.File under Besart.

Good grief! Some stunning comments.

Though unfortunately accurate.

Waste of money.

Getting his wages off the books would be big for us

ClaretSteve wrote:Getting his wages off the books would be big for us

Given his injury record who's going to buy him this summer? We'll pay his wages and physio this season then he'll go on a free next summer.

His contract renewal is an example of one of our low stakes gambles that didn't work out.

FactualFrank wrote:I can't see Defour featuring much before Christmas.

Can you specify which Christmas.

we’re just having to work with him and wait for his body to get strong enough to join in with us,

Not his fault but you cant have much confidence that he'll play a lot of minutes for us ever again. Played 449 league minutes last season (according to Fantasy Football). Realistically, any planning for our 2019/20 campaign has to assume he wont be playing much, if at all. Sad but true.

It is imperative that we get a replacement for him before the window closes.

Strange injury, not a bone joint or ligament/tendon but a muscle- apparently. What kind of muscle injury needs this length of time and surgery to sort. Is his problem his leg or his head a la David Bedford? Whatever and wherever it is, is there any realistic chance of a recovery and should we pay out his contract?

I thought he wanted a move in the summer..now we know why. Just hope we aren’t getting him fit for China.

Sod Defour, if we start the season with Cork, Westwood and Hendrick as our central midfielders, we will struggle.

JohnDearyMe wrote:Looks like his Burnley career could well be over

His Burnley career never really started.

Vino blanco wrote:Sod Defour, if we start the season with Cork, Westwood and Hendrick as our central midfielders, we will struggle.

We didn't struggle in the second half of last season with those as our central midfielders.

Its a bizarre situation again the fans are clueless to whats going on..dont think he will play again for Burnley

Most alarming one is The Pope injury for me. This is the sort of thing that happens after a long lay off. Unrelated injuries are common. And exactly why we shouldn't be in a rush to lose Hart or Heaton. Never mind both!

Tall Paul wrote:We didn't struggle in the second half of last season with those as our central midfielders.

Because they did not get injuried. Do you still not accept that we need another fit cm player in a team with a £100m plus annual revenue budget ?

summitclaret wrote:Because they did not get injuried. Do you still not accept that we need another fit cm player in a team with a £100m plus annual revenue budget ?

Yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean we will struggle if we don't get one, as we showed in the second half of last season.

Tall Paul wrote:Yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean we will struggle if we don't get one, as we showed in the second half of last season.

Unbelievably complacent imo. This is the big league. Can't believe that any professional or semi would take such a risk.

summitclaret wrote:Unbelievably complacent imo. This is the big league. Can't believe that any professional or semi would take such a risk.

We've done this thing before where you call me complacent.

Do you really think the club aren't trying to sign another midfielder?

Papabendi wrote:I thought he wanted a move in the summer..now we know why. Just hope we aren’t getting him fit for China.

Would say doubtful as the Chinese transfer window closes on Wednesday this week. Although you never know

Tall Paul wrote:We've done this thing before where you call me complacent.

Do you really think the club aren't trying to sign another midfielder?

I would hope so but their track record in cm is not encouraging. Its already cost us one relegation and were a handful of points away from another last season. They gambled on Defour and just 3 for cm then. To do it again would be asking for big trouble. Also the other options for temp cm are all injury prone i.e. brady and JBG.

I really hope he proves me wrong but I must admit I am starting to think he is really not that interested in playing.

Bojan krkic.....From Barcelona to Burnley Via stoke city...... Only 28

summitclaret wrote:I would hope so but their track record in cm is not encouraging. Its already cost us one relegation and were a handful of points away from another last season. They gambled on Defour and just 3 for cm then. To do it again would be asking for big trouble. Also the other options for temp cm are all injury prone i.e. brady and JBG.

Brady and JBG are not temporary options in midfield.

We'd have to go 451 if either jbg or Brady went inside otherwise we'd get absolutely sliced open

Bit of an issue saying “get Defour off the wage books!” when he’s injured. Who’s going to buy him if he’s nowhere near playing then??

Sheedyclaret wrote:Its a bizarre situation again the fans are clueless to whats going on..dont think he will play again for Burnley

I don't think Dyche could have made it much clearer, to be fair.

We really do need to do a proper risk assessment on Defour.

Regardless of that we are stuck with him until he is repaired. How long that will be and how successful the repair is, is in the lap of the Gods.

The best thing to do is to try and sell him as soon as he is fit, windows permitting. So hopefully January.

Sheedyclaret wrote:Its a bizarre situation again the fans are clueless to whats going on..dont think he will play again for Burnley

I'd say it's you with the problem if you don't know what's going on after that comment from Dyche.

I know some fans would like everything out in the open, in plain English, but it doesn't work like that at any professional club does it?

FactualFrank wrote:I can't see Defour featuring much before Christmas.

Jingle bells
Jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Santa's told me
It's bad news
Defours not fit to play.

The club (presuming with the full backing of SD) decided to take up the option of a further 12 months for Defour last season
Given his injury record I found that surprising
With there now being no imminent chance of a return to training (never mind playing) the club are hardly likely to spin anything positive about this guy

Corky wrote:We really do need to do a proper risk assessment on Defour.

Regardless of that we are stuck with him until he is repaired. How long that will be and how successful the repair is, is in the lap of the Gods.

The best thing to do is to try and sell him as soon as he is fit, windows permitting. So hopefully January.

If he's fit in January,i'd even let him go on a free,just to get him off the books.

He's one of our highest earners and he's earning "money for nothing" to quote Dire Straits.

Assuming this is his last season he'll need replacing sooner or later anyway,

Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Like others, I'm seriously wondering whether he really WANTS to play for us again. Surely after lengthy injuries and long lay offs many players must find the mental side of returning just as daunting as the physical side. Add to that that he's our only proper foreign import and he's at a somewhat unfashionable and unglamourous club and at times he must feel very much like a fish out of water. The contract extension is a real puzzler to me, from both sides tbh.
As regards strengthening our central midfield, I have to assume the club are actively working on it, but it's a very hard position to find experienced, available and affordable talent. It appears we seriously went in for the guy from Genk, but were unsurprisingly quite easily gazumped by a more appealing club. But like others, I do believe that if we don't sort it we'll really struggle this season.

He ain’t going anywhere this year.
We couldn’t give him a way if we tried.
Why would someone on the best part of £50k a week who is not even fit to train do anything else than see out his contract ?
His plan will be to get himself fit enough by the end of next June to scrape past a medical and persuade someone to sign him on a free transfer for another couple of years.

It was always going to be a risk signing Defour - we knew the risks and it’s not worked out.
For sure he was a quality player and he was at least a level above anyone in our team in terms of what he could see and do on the pitch.
But with wages and transfer fee we will have spent around £20m on a player who will have made just over 50 appearances in the league - that’s £400k per appearance. And that doesn’t take into account that for many of those games he only played 60 minutes !

We made our money back on him with finishing in 7th.

Maybe Defour triggered the extra year automatically after playing in a certain number of games? If we chose to do it it was a bit of a strange decision.

We've got Defour, Steven Defour!
He's sitting in the new disabled stand.
Recovery's taking ages,
While we shell out on his wages,
Please someone buy him Jan'ry or before.

GodIsADeeJay81 wrote:We made our money back on him with finishing in 7th.

We didn’t - we paid it out in bonuses