Good window, but...
Maatsen or Vitinho?
A tough game on Friday night, after two more new faces arrived on deadline day.
Good window, but...
With 16 new signings, it’s hard to know where to start assessing the summer window.
Turkey international Halil Dervisoglu and German defender Jordan Beyer arrived on deadline day, joining on loan from Brentford and Borussia Monchengladbach, to take us to a team and a half’s worth of new signings, replacing the dozen or so who left.
The team on Friday night had six new players in it, with another two coming off the bench. It’s fair to give credit for an unbelievable overhaul of what was a stale squad.
But. There’s always a but. Any assessment of a transfer window has to look at who left, as well as who came in. I’m not sure somewhere in the region of £60 million was enough for Nick Pope, Nathan Collins, Dwight McNeil and Maxwell Cornet. Yes, we probably knew all four would get snapped up, but I feel the fees could have been more.
We know why we had to sell. The way the takeover was conducted landed the club with a huge loan, around half of which seems to have been paid off. While Burnley’s financial situation does not seem to be as apocalyptic as the more breathless reports suggested at the start of the summer, we do still have debt that needs to be paid off.
Profit on players probably stands at £20-30m+ over the transfer windows since ALK took over. Yes, selling players is inevitable after relegation, but that is a lot of money.
Can you imagine the reaction if the previous owners had overseen relegation, having made a profit in January’s window, then invested under half of what was brought in? I don’t think we would be falling over ourselves to heap praise on Mike Garlick, do you?
Context matters: The age profile of the new players shows a radical change of plan. Josh Cullen is the oldest new signing at 26, with fellow Belgian league arrivals Samu Bastien and Manuel Benson 25. Most of them should - should! - improve in value.
That’s in contrast to big signings like Matej Vydra, Jeff Hendrick and Robbie Brady, who all came in for good fees and contributed to varying extents, but left for nothing.
Five loans is a lot. We probably couldn’t have afforded to buy Nathan Tella or Taylor Harwood-Bellis, but it does mean we might need to replace them in a year’s time. It is a slight worry how reliant we are on those two, plus Ian Maatsen, but there are worse problems to have than being able to play really good players we’ve borrowed cheaply.
It’s eye-catching to me how much control Vincent Kompany appears to have been given. A lot has been made of the data-driven approach to recruitment that ALK wanted to take, but five signings following him from Belgium is a sign we have leaned heavily on our new manager. Which is fine - Sean Dyche had a similarly strong say over transfers - but it isn’t in keeping with the way a lot of clubs operate nowadays.
Clearly time will tell how successful the window has been, with some signings likely to make more impact in future seasons, while others just won’t work out. It happens.
But if anyone would have told us a few months ago we were going to sign 16 new players, we would have laughed in their faces. It has been a remarkable summer.
Maatsen or Vitinho?
Friday was arguably the worst we’ve played all season, albeit against a good solid team. I’ve only seen West Brom twice but they seem to be strong and organised, just what you would expect of a Steve Bruce team in the Championship. I’d back them to be in the top six, so a point away from home to WBA is nothing to complain about.
I was a touch surprised we didn’t rotate the team, since it was our third league game in less than a week, but it was harsh on Johann Gudmundsson that he dropped out. JBG might not have produced vast amounts of end product, but we did win all three games he started, even if the goals in two of them came after he had been subbed off.
JBG had put a solid shift in against Millwall - a comfortable home win in the end - with Benson replacing him to deliver the key cross for Vitinho to head in the opener.
The team feels better balanced with JBG on the right and Vitinho on the left. I’m not sure why that is, as both players want to cut inside on to their stronger foot. But JBG gives us more defensively than anyone else who has started on the right side so far.
Vitinho was excellent filling in at left-back - btw, have you heard he’s Brazilian? - and I personally would have left him there. Maatsen was probably our star player in the opening few games but when he lost his head in the Blackpool match, it let his team down and arguably cost us two points. I’m not sure it was right to bring him straight back in. He looked rusty and, again, Vitinho was just as good when he dropped in.
It’s a big call for Kompany to make. When he plays, the system is arguably too reliant on Maatsen providing width, resulting in our attacks becoming too one-sided. In the games where Vitinho started, with Tella pulling a little wider then coming in off the channel and making those insane darts down the middle, we seemed more dangerous.
Maatsen is clearly an excellent player and will have a massive role to play this season. For now, though, I think JBG wide right with Vitinho at left-back is the best approach.
I see suggestions Vitinho should play right-back over Connor Roberts - fast becoming this season’s whipping boy, succeeding McNeil - to give us more threat on both sides.
That seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding of our plan - and Roberts’ role.
Roberts isn’t playing as a right-back, not really. He’s essentially a third centre-back. The role doesn’t suit him that well but, despite the fluffed clearance that led to West Brom’s (inevitable) late, late equaliser, he has been doing a solid enough job.
We could play Vitinho and Maatsen as wider full-backs, but that would leave the centre-backs exposed. Cullen can’t cover both sides at once and surely we want Jack Cork to patrol the middle of the pitch, where he can dominate, so how would it work?
Ultimately having too many good players to fit in is the quintessential Nice Problem To Have for a manager, but it is something of a conundrum for Kompany to solve.
Stats corner
Aro Muric has come off injured two games in a row. That can’t happen often to a goalkeeper, right? I asked Stat Man Dave if he could run the numbers on this.
He counted them alllllll up one by one and found that over 5,702 past Burnley matches, in league and cup competitions, there have only been 18 instances where Burnley have made a goalkeeper substitution. That means, five minutes into his Burnley career, Muric is responsible for two out of 18 historic BFC goalie subs.
Wild. Here’s the full list:
I don’t think any of us needed to be reminded about that Sheffield Wednesday game…
Let’s hope Muric shakes off both his injuries and avoids making it three in a row.
Letters
For this week, I wanted to know how you rated the transfer window overall:
Richard pointed out we haven’t seen some of the players yet - which is fair, some are injured - but I think it’s telling in itself. It’s a long season but it seems Luke McNally isn’t going to be involved much, with CJ Egan-Riley also perhaps just cover. Did we need to pay £2 million for McNally when we had Bobby Thomas already? Hmmm.
Here’s Iain:
Every player we've signed is exciting in some way. We've really missed that. Would prefer we had a more physical striker to bring on. Loan players are very good. But does take away from developing our own. Fees received for Pope, McNeil & Collins felt a little low.
Agree with most of that - particularly the point on loans. If the Pace plan is to buy young players and develop them, don’t the loans block that pathway to an extent? While it’s good to see Dara Costelloe involved, what about other academy talent?
And Mark:
Been a weird transfer window, losing some many players on end of contracts and players being sold to bring money in. At the moment it seems to have worked.
I admit hadn't heard of most of the players, had to Google them and ask friends who follow the lower leagues and who follow European football. We seem to have spent money let's say cautiously, being a Yorkshireman should be happy with that. But as a Burnley fan would have liked some bigger signings.
I hadn’t heard of most of them and I used to be a football journalist! I can’t imagine many of us follow the Belgian league closely enough to have any knowledge of them.
It sounds like we were willing to pay good money for Michael Obafemi and Scott Twine cost about £4m, so the intent has been there I guess. But it’s a big net profit.
Lastly Kathryn, who said she wanted to sign a defender:
We need an experienced CB to add to our young team and protect Muric. The style of play is exciting and can only improve as the team gel together and gain experience.
Hopefully Beyer fits the bill, but he’s another younger lad, not an older head. That’s it for this week. No midweek game for a change. Where do you stand on Vits/Maatsen?