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by claretspice » Mon Feb 01, 2021 8:50 pm
Two hours to go, but as a first test of the promises made by the new Chairman, it's not a great start.
Barring a total disaster, we shouldn't go down this season, so it may well be that a quiet window doesn't prove *that* significant in and of itself.
But as everyone knows, including the chairman and the manager, the imminent rebuilding job at Burnley gets bigger with every passing window. Whilst the squad is not as thin as some make out, most would accept that it's a 4th wide option and a 4th centre half short of its fighting weight. On top of that, it's almost certain that we will need to replace at least 2 of the recent regular starting eleven before we start next summer (Tarkowski and Brady). Add the need to replace the almost certainly departing Vydra and Bardsley, and even if you take the view that you don't need 2 players for absolutely every position (a 4th striker could also be a 4th wide option if it is a more flexible player, etc.) we're still setting ourselves for quite the overhaul. And that's before raising the possibility that McNeil or Pope could be hard to keep.
Doing that sort of surgery in one window to a squad whose greatest strength is its cohesion, is a huge ask. It's getting close to the point where getting back on track is a 2-3 window challenge. Throughout that transition, we'll be more vulnerable to relegation. That was OK in the old world where we were debt free - it would have been painful but manageable. But change of ownership, whilst supposed to open up new possibilities, has a huge question mark against it in the shape of what relegation would mean.
Whatever the reasons, the fact we've made no down payment on that summer overhaul this window means that we're a bit more likely to find out the answer to that question at the end of next season.
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