Time for Burnley to Start Over?

Burnley have come a long way from the dark days of the 1980's, surviving the drop out of the football league in 1986/87 by just one point, and each decade since then they have managed to slowly climb the pyramid, one tier at a time.

Sean Dyche took over as Burnley manager in 2012. Previous to him, Burnley had only managed one season in the Premier League, with Owen Coyle securing promotion through the Play Off's in 2009, only to be sacked midway through the 2009/10 EPL season, as Burnley were relegated back into the Championship. Dyche has transformed Burnley from a Championship outfit to a Premier League side, on an incredibly limited budget. Dyche failed on his first attempt in the Premier League, as Burnley were again immediately relegated back to the Championship. But Dyche's boys then bounced back to win the second tier in 2016 and have remained in the Premier League in the four seasons since, even securing Europa League in 2018, and they are still in the mix with four games to go of the 2019/20 season to push for another European campaign.

However, despite Burnley performing well on the pitch, there has often been murmurs of discontent behind the scenes. Rather than pushing on from qualifying for the Europa League, Burnley's thin squad fell back into the relegation battle during the start of the 2018/19 season. Quite simply, it seems Burnley's squad depth was not sufficient to deal with a long and arduous European campaign.

Firstly, looking at the players used in the Premier League season by season, it shows that when Burnley qualified for the Europa League, they had the second least players in their squad (30, behind Southampton on 29) and used the second least players (24, behind Bournemouth on 22). Burnley increased the squad size by three, up to 33, for the 2018/19 season, but this was now the joint smallest in the Premier League alongside Fulham and Huddersfield, who both ended the season being relegated. That season, Dyche only used 23 players, suggesting his fringe players were not up to the level required to play in the Premier League. A lack of rotation with those core players being required to play Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons week-on-week no doubt had a negative effect on Burnley's league performance as they finished 15th.

Since Dyche's Burnley returned to the Premier League in 2015 his squad has only aged further, going from an average of 27.4 to 28.1 years. Dyche and Club Chairman Mike Garlick have often been rumoured to be locking horns, but now Burnley are in a situation where they have ultimately reached the top of the mountain, and unless this current squad is rejuvenated with good investment in young talent, it will ultimately be facing a relegation battle that they will eventually lose in the coming seasons.

The club has made progress off the field, investing £10.5 million into its training centre and the Academy successfully being awarded Category 1 status. However, this is a long term fix only, Dwight McNeil is the only Academy graduate getting significant game time in the current squad, and it is unlikely that the current squad can be replaced entirely by Academy products and survive in the Premier League.

Here, an age-utility graph that I have made in Tableau for Burnely highlights the issues that they currently have going into the post-COVID era of football. This is made as of the 9th July 2020, so shows the first 34 games of the 2019/20 season.

Instantly, three major issues are clear;

(1) Only Dwight McNeil is getting any significant minutes out of the younger players.

(2) The club is close to facing a crisis with many players set to soon be out of contract.

(3) Dyche is not prepared to give any Academy graduates time on the pitch for the first team, so it seems even their contracts are being run down or not offered - these are all players who no doubt will be wanting to play first team football.

The grey strip in the middle of the graph shows those aged between 25 and 30, supposedly in the prime of their career. This of course is up to individual interpretation also, for example, a 35 year old Ronaldo is undoubtedly still excelling and didn't suddenly become an incompetent footballer after passing 30.

Those players in red either ended their loan (Danny Drinkwater) or were released without a new contract being agreed on the 30th June. Dyche has already voiced his discontent about Hendrick being allowed to leave for free - the player had chalked up the eighth most minutes for Dyche this season, and looks like he still has a few more years in the tank at 28 years old.

Those players in orange are signed to the club until the end of the 2020/21 season only, so securing their signatures should be at the top of the priorities list - especially club captain Ben Mee.

Players in green are under contract going past this, however, Garlick and Dyche will be looking at almost all players, except the young prospect Dwight McNeil, to generate cash for the much needed rebuild. At 20 years old, and already playing the second most minutes out of the squad, McNeil should be the attacking outlet that Burnley build their future around. He currently has the joint most assists for the season within the club (with Ashley Westwood) on six, the third most shots (42), behind strikers Chris Wood (55) and Jay Rodriguez (52) and he has shown that he is able to fit into Dyche's defensive game coming up with the second most tackles (44), only behind James Tarkowski (62).

Burnley have averaged an annual net transfer spend of £9.9 million only under Dyche, however, recruitment has failed to address the issue of an ageing squad, and now with contract issues coming to the forefront, it is now or never for Burnley. Dyche has done a fantastic job for the club and most fans would undoubtedly feel that he is the man to lead the rebuild, but the main priority must be to stay in the Premier League whilst they do it.

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The main purpose of this post was to learn how to create a team's age-utility graph whilst data scraping Transfermarkt, however, I have realised that data scraping and data visualisation in R will take more time to master, so for now I have focused on producing this data visualisation in Tableau. I plan to continue to refine my data scraping skills and further understand html codes.

To further this, I could look at where the current over-reliance and priorities for investment are within the Burnley squad and then look for players that would suit their style using a site such as WyScout. Unfortunately, this requires a paid license, so for now I will have to look for more niche ways of providing the next step to my analysis.

If anyone does have any resources on where to look or how to take the next step in this process then please get in touch.