Following a disastrous 2016-17 season where Burnley managed to finish 16th on the points table, nothing much was expected from the Clarets in the following season. Football world expected the Sean Dyche-managed side to be sent packing back to the Championship the very next EPL season.
To make things worse, Burnley was pitted against defending Premier League champions Chelsea in their first round of the 2017-18 season. Burnley saw an impossible task ahead of them when they travelled to Stamford Bridge for their first game. But to the surprise of everyone, the Clarets registered a monumental 3-2 win over the defending champions on the opening day of the new season.
With the courtesy of two goals from Sam Vokes and solid defending in the second half (definitely not to forget the two red cards – Gary Cahill and Cesc Fabregas) resulted in a grand celebration by 1,400-odd away fans who thumped their chest with pride following an unprecedented win.
Since then, there was no looking back for the Lancashire-based club as they went on to taste immense success throughout the season finishing 7th on the points table, just behind the Premier League giants. But here are 3 reasons why Burnley will reciprocate similar performance in the upcoming season as well.
Mostly, the EPL clubs don’t do well in their away matches, so was the case with Burnley in the 2016-17 season when they managed to win just one of their 19 away games. But the very next season, the new Burnley side was looking completely different from the one that was outplayed by its opponents the previous season.
The fans who were visiting the away game didn’t go home disappointed as the Clarets registered 7 wins from 18 away games, losing just 5 of it. Burnley was one of those rare teams that had a better away record than home one last season.
Scoring 36 goals in 38 matches and still finishing 7th in the EPL points table is an achievement that won’t be repeated in a very long time. Having produced a goal scoring average of 0.94 per game, one can hardly expect that club to finish in the top half of the points table.
But in the case of the Clarets, the defenders put up a brilliant show to halt the opponents from scoring. The defensive wall spearheaded by James Tarkowski, Matthew Lowton, Ben Mee and Stephen Ward ensured that the strikers never got many chances to take a shot at goal. With 11 clean sheets, Nick Pope backed the efforts of the defenders and at the end of the season, Burnley had just conceded 39 goals.
This gives a clear indication that Burnley will once again be opting for a defensive gameplay in the upcoming season, which will surely put the best of strikers in a spot of bother.
Sean Dyche took charge of the Clarets following the departure of Eddie Howe in October 2012. Since then, the Englishman has led Burnley back to the Premier League on two different occasions. After fighting for four years in the Championship, Sean Dyche helped Burnley finally break the deadlock with a promotion to the highest league in 2014-15.
This was followed by an immediate dejection, as the team got relegated again to the Championship the very next season. Had it been any other club, they would have fired Sean Dyche but Burnley were still adamant that he was the right man for the job and chose to continue with him.
This decision did wonders for the club with some mind-blowing results over the last three years. With a 7th-place finish last season, Dyche not only proved his doubters wrong but was also handed a new contract until 2022.
