dsr-burnley

Penalty? You think Burnley will get a penalty? We've already exceeded our ration for the season - we had a penalty against Watford. That fulfills our annual one-a-year quota. Barnes is probably injured, so you dodged a bullet there.

They have already changed the rule. That's the problem. Thirty years ago, the offside rule was changed to allow a forward who was level with the second-last defender, to be offside. This was explicitly stated to be with the purpose of allowing more goals, and it was also explicitly stated in guidance to referees that if a player looked level to the normal human eye, then he was level. There was no need to go to the nth degree, The new rule eliminates level. According to the new rule for VAR games, a player cannot be level so the idea of being onside when level ceases to exist. Last year, Vardy would have been level, so the goal would have been legitimately given. If VAR had been used using last year's rule, the Vardy would still have been level and the goal would have been given after a cursory check - no more than 15 seconds, probably less. Under this year's ruiles, the goal was disallowed. This is deliberate policy by the VAR administrators. They think the game is better because the goal was disallowed. The people administering VAR should be sacked and replaced by football people; people with common sense; people who actually like the game.

I tend to stick to facts. No need to get involved in shouting matches with other teams' fans - there's enough of that on our own board!

Not quite. Population 81,548 per the last census. There were 1267 from Burnley according to the official attendance.

You're wrong about Gray and Gibson. Gray cost £9m, was Championship top scorer and player of the year in the year we won it, scored 9 next year in the Premier, and was sold for £18m. That worked out. Gibson was signed as cover for Tarkowski and Mee, neither of who have missed a game in 18 months. You have to have injury cover, especially at centre half; injury cover doesn't become a failed signing just because it isn't needed. Defour was injured for most of his three years, so in that sense he was a failure; it's a bit harsh to apportion blame on anyone for that, though. We do have scouts outside the UK.

He's 27, and he's under contract for another 3 years, and so unless he has got a £50m release clause to a club outside the top 6, then you won't be getting him. Though Burnley might be willing to sell for £50m to clubs like Leicester outside the top 6, if Tarkowski wants to go. We've got Gibson ready.

If you were a doctor of medicine (assuming you aren't?), you might recognise schizophrenia when you see it. He gets tolerated for mental illness.

I think Burnley can become a better team, yes. I'm sure plenty of people on this board remember a time when a financially "smaller" club broke into the top end of the Premier? You've encouraged our dreams. Perhaps more relevant is whether Dyche thinks that he could make Leicester into a "top 6" club any more easily than Burnley.

Last year Burnley finished 16th and people said they weren't sure if he could improve on that.

The implication being that while Burnley can't possibly make the big 6 into a big 7, Leicester can? I have my doubts. If the Leicester owner's expectation (as past history suggests) is that the bare minimum for Leicester is 7th, and success can only be achieved by 6th and better, and if the club drops to 8th you're out of a job - it's a big big risk to leave Burnley for that.

They say that every year.

Whether Sean Dyche has been approached before, I don't know. But if he has, then either he turned the job down, or else he wasn't offered it. If he turned it down, he will turn it down again; if he wasn't offered it, then he wouldn't accept a job where he was by no means first choice and where four managers have been sacked in three years, and where the club is willing to negotiate with a new man while still notionally employing the existing man. At Burnley, Dyche is at a club which is hopefully in Europe next year, where he has a squad which will run through walls on request, where he has a Board of Directors who are happy to let him do anything he wants including setting the budget, and where he knows he won't be sacked if the club is in 15th place ten games into the season or even 30 games into the season. Yes, Leicester has very rich owners, 50% higher gates, and five times the catchment area that Burnley does; but in spite of the "many pond notes" comments, I don't think he's obsessed with having just a little more money. If the owners promise £200m a year investment, who knows? The one temptation that Leicester have and Burnley don't is Vardy & Mahrez, Stick those two in any club outside the top 6 and there will be significant improvement - no-one else outside the top 6 has players like that. It makes management so much easier with a natural goalscorer up top, and clubs like ours can't normally get them or keep them. But Mahrez can't be relied on to be at Leicester next year.

Shakespeare? He managed the club for 26 games, and the only ones he lost were Everton, Athletico Madrid, Arsenal twice, Man City, Man United, Spurs, Chelsea, and Liverpool. There's no way an outsider would call that "sticking by him in rough patches" before giving him the sack.

Considering that you've sacked three managers in the last three years - two of them within a year of winning a championship - I doubt that's how it would appear to an outsider. Especially as if the whole premise of these recent posts is that you're currently in process of playing a very dirty trick on manager number 4.

Speaking as a Burnley fan, if we qualify, I'm not going to lose sleep over the idea that it might cost us a chance of winning the league. I don't see any reason why qualifying for Europe = failure next season, anyway. Certainly the reverse doesn't apply. southampton were the highest placed club not to qualify last year - how has that worked out? Are their fans sitting back thinking "at least we didn't have to play any European ties this year"?

I'm flattered (and surprised) that you think we could reach the final. And that makes it even more surprising that anyone (some of our fans as well as some of yours) think that qualifying might be a bad idea. Saying it's a bad thing because we might win it? Isn't winning European trophies supposed to be a good thing? Think of it this way - seventh place last season was Everton. They qualified for Europe, they have had a bad year. Does that prove that finishing 7th is a bad thing? No, actually. Because the club in 8th was Southampton - they didn't qualify for Europe, but that hasn't turned out to be a recipe for success. We aren't there yet - not with Saturday's game to come. Bring it on!

Footballers just aren't good at telling journalists where to get off. I'm sure Wood knows perfectly well that Burnley finishing 7th isn't equivalent to Leicester winning the league, but when the journalist suggests it is, is Wood going to tell him he's talking rubbish?

Wednesday 23rd August 2017 - Liverpool 4 Hoffenheim 2. Sorry. But you were the last to win a home leg of a post-group stage knockout.

No offence to the presenters who no doubt do a lot of work, but according to that league table West Brom are a better side and have a better defence than Burnley. That means there is a big flaw in the calculations. At least, I hope when you compare their performance last Saturday with our performance when you come to the Turf, you won't agree with them!

If it helps to put it into context, Burnley's last ten league games have included just 4 at home, and all of them were against teams in the top 4. The rest of the season gives us 6 home games, all against teams that aren't in the top 4. We're hopeful of getting a few more points. Here's to the rest of the season!

The Burnley/Leicester thing is just that we have spent quite a few of the last few seasons (one obvious exception) chasing the same position in the league. It's nothing permanent. We used to have a strange one-sided rivalry with Stockport, just because we kept drawing them in every cup going (11 matches in two seasons) and they couldn't find anyone else t claim rivalry against.

I wouldn't agree the fixture list is in Leicester's favour. If you're scrapping against relegation, you want the easy games at home because if you win 2 out of every 6, you're OK. When you're chasing the top and you want to win 4 out of 6, you want the odd "easy" game away. We're both better than "2 out of 6" teams. Interestingly, with 16 games left, Burnley and Leicester have (barring home and away differences) the same fixture list. We've both got everyone to play apart from Huddersfield, Man U, and Liverpool.

It's certainly crossed my mind. As Sean Dyche pointed out after last night's game, the fans are allowed to get a bit giddy. It's the players and management that need to keep their feet on the ground, not the fans.

Leicestershire has a huge population and you don't have any other league clubs to share it with, do you? Huge potential. Given megarich owners, there's no reason why you shouldn't try and be a lot bigger. Out of interest, what do you get in a training ground for £60m? Burnley's new one cost £11m and is considered to be pretty good. (Certainly better than what we had before!!) Admittedly, we already owned the land, but what else do you get for the extra £49m?

You can't be 80% vegan. You might as well say you're teetotal except when you go out for a drink.