, Is Burnley the club Leeds and West Brom should try and emulate?

Is Burnley the club Leeds and West Brom should try and emulate?

What do you think of when you think Burnley? If its football you may think average, but that would be wrong. Burnley have built a club on a solid foundation over the last twenty years, and realistically, provide a solid business model for anyone wanting Premiership stability.

As a place, Burnley is not affluent, it is a typical northern town, prosperity is not a thing, yet, when appointing Sean Dyche, no once could have imagined what would come.

Building the model

2009 saw Burnley reach the Premier League, then return immediately to The Championship,  with the clubs return to the second tier a revolution began. In 2012 Sean Dyche took the reins, and off the back of his popular style at Watford, Dyche began forming a club in his image.

A quick return to the Championship having not spent the wealth of top-flight would generally see a sacking, but Burnley’s board knew Dyche offered more, the transfer kitty remained mostly full, and for good reason.

The money would fund development, build a state of the art training facility and look to the future, A future where sustaining the club’s ethos would be coupled with financial stability. Dyche had a plan and its one where others could take note.

In our future, football may be more about bringing the youth through, and Sean Dyche has been doing exactly that, only buying when necessary, and bringing talent through to both augment the team and in some cases finance the club via sales, Dyche is a popular man in the Lancashire streets.

Currently, in the paused table, Burnley sits 10th, and with nine games to go, most clubs would be happy with that.

Adapting the model

Clubs that hit the Premier League often splurge like Viv Nicholson who won £152,000 (equivalent to £3.3million) on the football pools in 1961. Like Nicholson, these sides (such as Fulham and Aston Villa recently) adopt a ‘spend spend spend’ policy aimed at Premier League consolidation. Others, such as Burnley and Sheffield United, are much more frugal and careful in their approaches.

Leeds, currently the headliners on the championship playlist do have a penchant for spending, whilst also (in a week where the Joy Division song is 40 years old) have a reputation for ‘falling apart” at the last hurdle, having been so close so many times recently. Maybe the marquee signing fund would be better-used funding progression of the youth boys, who, let’s face it, often come through Leeds academy and excel elsewhere, rather than in the white of LeedsUnited.

West Brom have been ‘in transition’ for a while, a decade or more of being ‘that team’ who no one really has feelings for, with the exception of Wolves, of course. From Darren Moore’s power hitters to Slaven’s rather electric stylings, with pressing play and honest work being key. Maybe the Hawthorns is not so far from Turf Moor as it stands. Spending money is less of a WBA thing, so it is more than plausible to think that the loyal fans could be happy with the thrifty windows seen in Burnley.

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