Excellent insightful Times article by Oliver Kay

[Stalbansclaret]

Life outside the Premier League Big Six is troubling. You tread water to protect your TV revenue
Oliver Kay, chief football correspondent

This season has shown that Burnley are the exception not the rule when it comes to success


Everything about Turf Moor feels, in the best possible way, like a throwback. Not to the days when the supporters travelled to the ground on the same bus as their heroes, but at least to the days when players would drive into the car park and walk to the dressing room without need for bouncers or security staff to clear a path through the crowd. At Burnley they are happy to mingle, obliging all requests for selfies and autographs.

That does not make Burnley unique, but they do retain a sense of intimacy that has been lost, quite willingly, at so many of the other 19 Premier League clubs. The norm at so many clubs is for players to be bussed in and bussed out, a security cordon to shield them as they emerge from behind blacked-out windows to take the few steps across terra firma to the gilded sanctuary of their dressing room. It is part of what Sean Dyche means when he bemoans the “glossiness” of the Premier League scene, where too many people have become so fixated on the “show” — the glitz, the glamour — that they have lost sight of what really matters in football. And what matters, according to the Burnley manager, is the earthy feeling of “teamship, giving everything for the cause, feeling part of something, being part of a tribe of people who care about one situation.”

Stoke City, Swansea City and West Bromwich Albion supporters might nod in distant recognition of these words as they contemplate what has been lost on their journey back to the Championship. That earthiness took them a long way on their journey to the top flight and it helped them to stay there and to become part of the show. Then the glossiness took over, at the expense of the earthiness, and, before they knew it, their team had been relegated, written out of the show.

It has been another season to reinforce the disconcerting feeling — only briefly challenged in unforgettable fashion by Leicester City two years ago — that the Premier League is a two-tier competition. Well, you could make a strong argument that Manchester City have been in a league of their own, but still it is the usual five clubs behind them. There is the Big Six and then there is the Not-So-Big Fourteen and, while Everton might have fancied their chances of upsetting the established order as they set off on that misguided splurge in the transfer market last summer, it is hard to see that changing any time soon.

It is a serious problem. The Premier League title has not been retained since 2009, but for all the “unscripted drama” hype, it is too predictable. Of the 168 matches played by the Big Six against the other 14 clubs this campaign, they won 117, drew 31 and lost just 20. Too many of those 168 games looked like attack-versus-defence training exercises. Between them, Crystal Palace, Everton and Southampton boast an abysmal record of one win out of 36 against the top six. The financial gulf between the top six and the rest is too big — and it will keep growing if the elite get their way. It has brought about a culture in which too many of the other 14 accept their place too readily. Over time, complacency and staleness seem inevitable.

Thank goodness for Burnley. They were among the pre-season favourites for relegation, yet they finished seventh, qualifying for European competition for the first time since 1966. Would it be doing Dyche and his players a disservice to say that work ethic, pride and honesty are, above all, what have made them the best of the rest in the Premier League this season? Or would it, conversely, be a huge compliment? It certainly wasn’t the quality of their attacking play; they scored 36 goals in 38 matches. They won games and ground out draws through a combination of spirit, endeavour, fitness, organisation and intelligence.

Similar tributes could be paid to Brighton & Hove Albion, Huddersfield Town and Newcastle United under Chris Hughton, David Wagner and Rafa Benítez respectively. These are teams whose supporters, like Burnley’s, have known all season that, win, lose or draw, the players’ application and focus could not be questioned.

Stoke were once this type of club. So were Swansea and West Brom. So were Southampton, who were drifting towards relegation under Mauricio Pellegrino until a late-season resurgence under Mark Hughes. These are clubs who felt that they had done the hard work by establishing themselves in the Premier League over the previous seasons. Over time, though, a sense of identity and purpose has been lost, compounded by questionable managerial appointments and poor recruitment.

It goes back to something Charlie Adam said last week. “A lack of discipline from certain players has been embarrassing,” the Stoke midfielder said after his team’s relegation. “I’ll be honest for the supporters. I think some players have been getting away with murder for a long time. It’s not just one or two. Four or five that could be counted.”

For years, Stoke were built on the attritional qualities that earned them promotion and then regular survival under Tony Pulis. They then reached a point when those qualities were no longer enough, so they appointed Hughes, who replaced some of Pulis’s old stagers with more sophisticated players, introducing a more appealing, more expansive type of football, finishing ninth in each of his first three seasons.

By the summer of 2016, though, the club’s old guard had all but disappeared. “Earthiness” was lost and, to use a twist on an old cliché, they had became the type of team who could not do it on a cold Tuesday night at Stoke — or even, towards the end of Hughes’s time, a mild Saturday afternoon at Stoke. Hughes was sacked in January with his team in the relegation zone. Paul Lambert, his successor, never really threatened to keep them up.

As he has demonstrated before, Hughes is a more than competent manager — one who no longer had the answers at Stoke but found them quickly enough at Southampton. When the Stoke chairman, Peter Coates, suggests that he should have sacked Hughes earlier, he is probably right. As Adam’s comments indicate, it had become a problematic dressing room. Team spirit, one of Stoke’s defining qualities in the early years of their Premier League existence, had become a negative rather than a positive.

Familiarity brings the threat of staleness, but upheaval comes with great risks too. Words like honesty, commitment, effort and respect appear on motivational posters at training grounds up and done the country, but, as Dyche says, they are easier said than instilled. “These,” the Burnley manager said, “are words that people often throw around in football — ‘We need a better culture, a better environment’ — as if it’s easy. It’s not. We put the foundations down here five years ago and we’re still working on it. It takes time. Not many people in football get time.”

David Moyes has encountered resistance at West Ham; Sam Allardyce likewise at Everton; Paul Clement found his initial success at Swansea City was not enough to dispel what he felt was a complacent dressing room; Alan Pardew failed miserably at West Brom. Before anyone suggests that the common denominator in all of this is British managers, Carlos Carvalhal’s magic-wand effect soon ran out at Swansea and Marco Silva lasted even less time at Watford than everyone else does; Claude Puel’s initial upturn at Leicester was followed by a slump that will have predictable consequences; of the ten managerial changes over the course of the season, none brought a more sustained improvement than Crystal Palace’s maligned appointment of Roy Hodgson.

There is something troubling, about life beyond the Big Six. For every success story, too many other clubs and teams are coasting. It seems there is a point at which bright-eyed enthusiasm is followed by a realisation that, with the top six out of reach, they are treading water, their ambitions barely extending beyond the next slice of television revenue. Because the thing about “the show” is that, when you are only interested in staying in it, your involvement comes under serious threat.

At Burnley they have shown that the right stuff can take you a long way. They lost their final fixture 2-1 to Bournemouth — another team who, under Eddie Howe, have striven so hard to retain that earthiness — but the atmosphere was one of jubilation, right down to the “European tour 2018/19” T-shirts. “We’ll see you next season,” said the announcer over the PA system, “and don’t forget your passports.” Again, it felt like a throwback — Europe as the representation of everything that is exciting and exotic. But Dyche will tell them they must not change, must not be seduced by their new horizons. They must remain earthy, their feet kept firmly on the ground

[ClaretDiver]

Great piece! Thanks for posting!

[jlup1980]

He's writing that like it's something new? The big six has been the big six for a long time now. Only Leicester have upset the order in the last 20 odd years. Everyone else is simply there to hit 40 points; that's the sum total of their ambition. We'll be the same come August and rightly so.

[piston broke]

Spot on piece. The “other” 14 should all be joint relegation favourites.
It’s not ability that separates them it’s injuries and in house problems.

[Blackrod]

A very good article. Thanks for posting.

[Siddo]

A very good article. Thanks for posting.

That is word for word what I was going to post!

Oh well, excellent article and thank you for posting it.

[Buxtonclaret]

Very good read.
If -and it's a big if- we manage to 'establish' ourselves in this league for a while, this article will need reposting on here when everyone gets fed up with just surviving.

[levraiclaret]

Good article, thanks for posting.

[CleggHall]

An earthy feeling of being part of something, teamship and part of a tribe with a common cause, yes this succinctly sums up what being a Burnley supporter means. Thanks for the tribute Oliver Kay, you know our club, welcome.

[ClaretTony]

Excellent article from one of the best football writers we have right now.

[Lancasterclaret]

Best bit of the whole thing was the mention of the players driving in and interacting with the fans.

You need that on both sides, the players to see what they mean to the fans and the town, and the fans to see that the players are human beings who are clearly doing their best.

[ClaretDiver]

Best bit of the whole thing was the mention of the players driving in and interacting with the fans.

You need that on both sides, the players to see what they mean to the fans and the town, and the fans to see that the players are human beings who are clearly doing their best.

Absolutely agree 100 percent!!!

[ClaretCliff]

Thanks for posting - great article.

The line about Stoke made me smile - "to use a twist on an old cliché, they had became the type of team who could not do it on a cold Tuesday night at Stoke "

[Foshiznik]

When mates ask me what I want from the next few seasons, I have mentioned how we are the early Premier League Stoke and that we need to keep that identity and not make the same mistakes as they have. This article basically says the same as me but in better words.

[ClaretTony]

Best bit of the whole thing was the mention of the players driving in and interacting with the fans.

You need that on both sides, the players to see what they mean to the fans and the town, and the fans to see that the players are human beings who are clearly doing their best.

Premier League rules apparently insist that players (both home and away) arrive into a sterile area where there is no interaction with fans. We've done that in the Longside/Cricket Field corner but our players arrive by car and can choose to go over to any waiting fans for autographs/selfies etc. if they wish. Our players do. It also allows for away players, if they wish, to do likewise when they get off the coach.

I was told that supporters wishing to be there now have to register with the club but I can't confirm that's the case.

It's certainly nothing like a lot of the bigger Premier League grounds where players are completely kept apart from the supporters. And long may that last at Burnley.

[uwe]

I met Oliver Kay a few weeks ago at a football event. Good bloke: quiet and thoughtful with - as this piece shows - a genuine, fans-perspective appreciation of the truth of the game.
He is refreshing contrast to some of the more knee-jerk, fan-boy, rent-a-gobs around the game.

My summary of this piece is that:
a) football has detached itself from normality, and is much the worse for it as an 'industry'
b) how mundane is it, that the pinnacle of success for all bar 6 clubs is to finish somewhere - indeed anywhere - between 7th and 17th.
c) How marvellous that our Club is the finest current exception to a) & b)

UTC.

Uwe.

[ElectroClaret]

Mr. Kay seems to have more brains in his little finger than
most of the serial belmtards on here have in their entire bodies.