Season Preview - Burnley

Unknown to many Premier League fans who don’t follow lower league football, Burnley will be hoping to surprise fans around the globe as they look forward to a make or break campaign in footballs highest division.

Last season, Burnley gained automatic promotion via 2^nd place in the Championship. They impressed many fans of the game with their fast, attacking football and their ability to surprise. Talisman Danny Ings was a vital part of Burnley’s campaign scoring 26 goals in 45 appearances meaning interest from many of the elite clubs including Liverpool and Arsenal, interest that Burnley won’t take too kindly too and will fight by any means necessary to keep their main man.

Transfers

Last summer, every Burnley fan was left disappointed as they lost key man Charlie Austin to QPR. They felt like an incomplete puzzle and after signing no first team regulars other than Tom Heaton in the window, leading Burnley fans thinking they were in for another mid-table catastrophe. Boy were they wrong, the selling of Charlie Austin proved to be a great bit of business as Danny Ings and Sam Vokes did more than step up to the mark and formed an incredible partnership, inflicting pain upon every Championship side. Other than that, no notable things happened during the summer for Burnley.

This season has been completely different. Burnley have built a great squad signing Marc Albrighton, Marvin Sordell, Matt Gilks, Steven Reid, Matthew Taylor, Michael Kightly and Lukas Jutkwiewicz. All of these players will play some sort of role in the new season and Burnley fans should expect Albrighton and Kightly to be their key players. However, there is definitely room for a few more and Burnley need a marquee signing for them to even have a chance of staying in the Premier League.

Predicted Lineup

As you can see by the Burnley team above, they do not have the best of teams. Their midfield and defence are poor but they do have a good attack, one which might just save them from the drop although probably not as virtually everyone is new to the Premier League and I can see it will take a while for most of the team to adapt, leaving Burnley in a worrying position.

Squad Depth

Again I find myself struggling to say something positive about Burnley, as the truth is they have no squad depth. Most of the players outside of the first team will not be challenging for a first team place and some of the players are just not Premier League standard.

Final Predicted Finish: 20^th

I hate to say it but Burnley will go down. They do not have a squad fit for survival and although they have a couple of fantastic players and a fantastic manager in Sean Dyche, Burnley will find it too much of an ask to stay up and could unfortunately end up in the Championship playing for promotion.

Predicted Key Player: Danny Ings

I have gone for the obvious choice of key player again, choosing the star forward in the team. Ings is a fantastic player and made a name for himself last season in the Championship as he scored goals for fun. Even though it will be hard for Ings to replicate his Championship goalscoring record in the big leagues, we could be in store for Ings to score around 12-15 goals this season, which is fantastic for a player of his age.

Coming up next… Chelsea.

By @nathan_said