Struggling Burnley are getting what they deserve

What has gone wrong for Burnley? Last season they were seventh in the Premier League. Today they are 15th. The answer is straightforward. Last season they were lucky. This season they have not been lucky.

Actually there is a bit more. Last season they got better results than they deserved. This season they have got the results they deserved, and what they have deserved this season is less than they deserved last season because they have played worse.

Burnley will probably start to play better again but there is no reason to think they will get lucky again.

There are two types of predictions. You can say somebody will do something that is unusual for them. When they have done something that was unusual for them you can say that now they may do something that is less unusual for them.

• Premier League standings

The first type of prediction grabs attention, if you get it right. It can make you famous. You will be acclaimed as a seer. I have no idea how to get those sort of predictions right. So I do not make them. I do the other sort. They are the ones that people without supernatural abilities can get right. Not all of the time but often enough to make the effort worthwhile.

So somebody has done something they had never done before? Will they do it again? Or was it just a silly phase they were going through, like the singer in that old 10cc song who insisted he was not in love. More likely than not, it was just a passing phase.

Sean Dyche has managed Burnley in the Premier League for three full seasons. In 2014-15 they conceded 53 goals. In 2016-17 (after a season in the Championship) they conceded 55 goals. Last season, according to the website FiveThirtyEight, Burnley should have conceded 54 goals – by which they meant that teams who allow opponents the same number and quality of shots typically concede 54 goals. Burnley conceded 39 – 15 fewer. They got lucky.

This season Burnley have conceded 25 goals after 11 games, which is what FiveThirtyEight say they should have conceded.

A rule of thumb: a team should concede one goal for every ten shots against them. Last season Burnley allowed opponents 15 shots per game. This season they have allowed opponents 21 shots per game. They have defended worse.

Twenty-five goals against after 11 games is equivalent to 86 goals against after 38 games. If Burnley allow opponents 21 shots a match for the rest of the season they could concede 86 goals. But they will probably not do either. Only Derby in 2007-08 have conceded more than 85 goals in a 38-game Premier League season. Burnley will probably defend better and concede less frequently.

Middlesbrough manager Tony Pulis – who, like Sean Dyche, has built his career on mostly solid defences – has said: “People get too carried away when you win and too carried away when you lose.”

A month ago I wrote an article in the Racing & Football Outlook saying that Football League clubs West Brom, Doncaster and Newport would probably do less well in October than in September.

They had done really well in September. Their managers became Managers of the Month – Darren Moore of West Brom in the Championship, Grant McCann of Doncaster in League One and Michael Flynn of Newport in League Two.

West Brom, Doncaster and Newport won four games each in September. They won one game each in October.

I had studied Football League Managers of the Month from the previous ten seasons, 2008-09 to 2017-18. Teams whose managers became Manager of the Month averaged 2.5 points per game in that month, 1.6 points per game in the next month – and 1.6 points per game for all other months in that season.

After doing something that was unusual for them, more often than not, people do something that is not unusual for them.

Important to measure efforts

Joshua Cheptegei sprinted away at the 2017 World Cross Country Championships in Kampala, capital of his birth land of Uganda. With two of the ten kilometres to run he led by 12 seconds.

Cheptegei was good. At the 2016 Olympics he had finished sixth in the 10,000 metres and eighth in the 5,000m. But he was not usually as good as he had looked for eight kilometres roared on by fellow Ugandans.

A report on the organisers’ website said “his reckless speed combined with the hot and humid conditions” began to tell. With one kilometre to go Cheptegei’s lead had been cut to seven seconds. In the last kilometre he was overtaken.

With 500 metres to go his legs buckled. He steadied himself and wobbled across the line in 30th place. “Let him go,” I can imagine other runners saying early in the race. “He will come back.”

Dreams and nightmares

Joseph in the Old Testament interprets Pharaoh’s dream of seven thin cows eating seven fat cows as meaning that seven years of famine would follow seven years of plenty.

After seven years of fine harvests I wonder how many Egyptians expected seven years of bad crops? I would not have done. But I would have been waiting for something less good and hoping it was not truly awful.

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