Burnley and Dyche will be missed by Premier League (ish)

Nobody’s second-favourite team Burnley look increasingly likely to be exiting stage left, which is actually quite sad. We shall miss Sean Dyche.

The April algorithm on the Premier League fixture computer is arguably the most particular in its settings. There needs to be at least two entirely predictable weekends, with easy wins for the big dogs to create that authentic neck-and-neck feel. At least one of the Champions League sides needs a short spate of huge games to sandwich their quarter-final tie and feed the ‘make-or-break week for…’ narrative. On the second weekend, at least one mammoth clash, so those of us not arsed about watching virgins and sex addicts in silly clothes play stick-ball for a silly coat have something to do, with that Saturday evening game interesting enough to keep us in the boozer after the National. And it is utterly pivotal that there are at least five do-or-die, win-or-bust, relegation six-pointers.

Unbeknownst to the Premier Leagues quality control operatives, as they scoured through the mush spewed from the Big Football Machine back in June, we have one of them this midweek. And my word is it a six-pointer. A win for Burnley and Farhad Moshiri’s hatchet-job comes a step closer to completion, the unthinkable prospect of an Everton relegation rendered too serious to ignore. A loss and you would have to damn The Clarets as all-but down.

This may feel premature. There is, of course, Much Football to Be Played™. It may even feel like disingenuous hype-pedalling, however unlikely the conflation of ‘hype’ and ‘Burnley’.

Yet, it is none of the above. Over the past five campaigns, only two sides have escaped from the bottom three at this point in the season; one of them was in the grips of enHasenhüttlement, the other in possession of Jack Grealish and a dismal Watford that could be overhauled. For Sean Dyche’s Burnley, the opposite is true.

Not only are they as far removed from a new manager bounce as is theoretically possible, but Ashley Westwood is their creative force and they are chasing a rising pack. Leeds have rediscovered enough of their old madcap chaos to survive, Brentford have found their messiah, and Newcastle’s recent wobble is unlikely to be anything more. It is realistically only Everton who can be caught, and to have any hope of doing so, they need three points on Wednesday. Do-or-die. Win-or-bust. Lovely stuff, fixture computer.

Except, if Burnley are to die, and if bust is what is happening here, lovely this is not. Because what relegation would mean is the end of one of the more understatedly remarkable stories of the sovereign-state Premier League era.

Playing a brand of football more associable with the pre-broccoli doldrums of the mid-nineties, Dyche’s Burnley have scrapped their way through six successive seasons of competitive football in a league that simply doesn’t belong to the likes of them anymore. For a club from a town of 79,000 people to have stuck around this long, with a net transfer spend of £14 million over the past five years, is something to be celebrated.

With that brand of football – route one, but invariably less grisly than all that – plenty will say that it’s good riddance to dour rubbish. But this is only part of the story here. Whilst the style of play itself might not be worth mourning, the plain fact of its existence arguably is. Because through the Boltons and Stokes and Burnleys of recent decades has been spoken a simple truth: that despite the meteoric rise of the Premier League into the gentrified, high-end, hyper-commodity it now is, there has always remained more than one way to win.

This plurality has always been a key selling point of the Premier League. So much of its myth-making – from the never-an-easy-game or one-normal-day-of-Barclays clichés, to the one about the windy Tuesday nights – has been built upon this. Carried on the back of those famous old Allardycean scalps, the maelstrom of the Britannia, a time when Turf Moor actually was a tough place to go, was the sense that this was a league like no other. The ultimate physical test for the world’s footballers. A final frontier for many.

Myth or otherwise, the levelling impact of this was certainly one thing that made the league unique. Here was, ever since the advent of continental coaching methods in English football, a land in the midst of a keenly-fought culture war: between Proper Football Man and Philosopher Coach. And whilst the former has been losing for some time, reduced further with each passing year towards the role of relegation firefighter, up until recently they could still win the odd battle. Enough to keep things interesting, at least. Were Dyche’s Burnley to lose this midweek, it would feel a lot like the death knell for that particular era.

A cursory glance at the Premier League table tells you as much. A combination of the unprecedented spread of tactical acumen and the obscene amount of money generated by even middling clubs has resulted in the near-complete ubiquity of possession-based, pressing football. All from Crystal Palace in 9th to Everton in 17th at least attempt to play in the ‘modern way’, with Hasenhüttl, Rodgers and Potter all currently occupying the lower-mid-table spaces previously reserved for Messrs Bruce, Pulis and Pardew.

Obviously, on many levels, this is a good thing. The standard of football is patently far higher as a result, and the effects of the culture change are undeniably being seen in the young players coming through to the national side. Besides, it actually really wasn’t that great, back in the day, when everyone was called Nethercott or Pemberton or some other Dickensian clerk’s name. And however much we may think we did, nobody really enjoyed watching Wimbledon and Sheffield Wednesday slosh their fetid way to a nil-nil in the mud.

Plus, at base level, this is a simple inevitability, the writing on the wall the moment Arsène Wenger arrived and invented passing. These, really, are little more than the terminal moments, the final stretch to an ever-widening gap that opened up some 25 years ago, and has led inexorably to the luxuriant, glowing thing in front of us now.

That said, there is still a sadness. A world in which a man like Dyche can pit his wits against your Guardiolas and your Klopps, in which the decadent exotic talents of the superclubs can front up against Josh Brownhill in ostensibly fair sporting competition, is a world that we are all enriched by. A world that has blended England’s deep footballing heritage with the best of the rest of the planet. And a world that, whether Burnley do or die, win or bust, is very shortly going to leave us.