Owen took a charge and helped
A lot was expected from Burnley last year, but Steve Cotterill did not manage to produce good results and had to pay the price by losing his job. Owen Coyle took the charge and finished at respectable 13th. Even that is certainly a failure, but the main reason was poor form during the Cotterill’s time. This time, Owen will be able to make the team from the scratch and to challenge for play-off. At least that is expected and what will happen is never a sure thing with Burnley.
New team
Owen Coyle did a lot of rebuilding during the summer. His premium target Andy Cole decided not to complete the switch to Burnley, while Northern Ireland international, Kyle Lafferty, ended in Rangers in a 3 million pounds move. The money earned with that transfer, Coyle invested in a long time Manchester United reserve Chris Eagles and Scunthorpe forward Martin Peterson. Both are excellent players, but will need some time to adapt to the new team. Also, Coyle signed Kelvenes from Dundee United, McDonald from Dundee, Penny from Coronel Bolognesi and van der Schaaf from Vitesse.
In
Martin Paterson (Scunthorpe), Kevin McDonald (Dundee), Christian Kalvenes ( Dundee United), Diego Penny (Coronel Bolognesi), Remco van der Schaaf (Vitesse), Chris Eagles (Manchester United)
Out
John Spicer (Doncaster), Kyle Lafferty (Rangers), James O’Connor (Sheffield Wednesday), Jon Harley (Watford), Besart Berisha (Rosenborg)
Another year of struggling
Even Owen managed to earn some good results with Burnley last year, this time we think this team will struggle. Mid table position is their maximum at least in our opinion. It is not because that they have bad team, but it looks like something is missing their. Eagles is excellent signing with probably Premier League quality, but he signed couple of days before the start of the season and will hardly be of any help in first month or two. This team will need some time to adapt to new players and in the meantime bad string of results can ruin the atmosphere and make them lot of problems. We doubt that they will have relegation problems, but after probably bad start they will find a rhythm and earn midtable in second half of the season. It will be too late for play-off spot.
PROM
PL-OFF
RELEG
