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The season is now well underway. Burnley have made a slow start to the campaign amidst lots of expectation. Billy Grant caught up with Burnley fan, Neil Hamilton, to get the low down on the ins and outs at Turf Moor. 
The season so far hasn’t gone according to plan for Burnley. Draws against Leeds and Birmingham. Losses against Ipswich plus Port Vale in the cup. Are your boys still on the beach In Ibiza?

Plenty of commitment and determination in both the Leeds and Birmingham games coming from behind three times.

Losing to Port Vale – well I doubt many Claret fans will be upset about going out of League Cup in round one.

Losing to Ipswich is more concerning, but not many teams will come away from their place with any points.

So to sum up. Same team ethic – 100% effort that Sean Dyche demands.

However, it’s clear we lack quality and creativity. Key players injured or having left the club is the obvious thing.

Must be weird. When you went up, you were the team everyone wanted to do well. Coz you were unfashionable and went against the grain doing things “your way” with no real big name signings. 

Now that you’re back down in the Championship, there’s no love lost and everybody wants to beat you – the ex-Premier League team with the parachute payments.

In the Premier League, all teams’ defences are strong. We did well in that department. However, like most promoted teams we found it hard to score and thereby more often than not we struggled to win.

As the season progressed on the ‘battling with little reward’ does take it’s toll. So, for me, coming back down to the Championship is OK, as I expect us to score well and win more often than lose.

Your director of football, Frank McParland, is no stranger to life outside the top flight – having been at Brentford during our Division One promotion year and also half a season of our Premier League play-off season – before being placed on gardening leave. This occurred shortly after what Bees fans have dubbed ‘Warburton-gate’ when the story of Mark Warburton leaving the club was leaked to the press (we hasten to add that no one has been linked/blamed with the leak and the club have moved on). Other than our ex loanee player, Chris Long, who scored in a development team debut on Wednesday, how is your team looking ??

We are missing Dean Marney and its no secret we need a midfield upgrade. Looks like the Lansbury saga from Notts Forest is over, so where next, who knows?

Lots of changes and new faces. Darikwa at full back looks decent and I believe he will improve over the season.

Vossen who is a striker in the No 10 mould I think needs to settle in and we will see what he has got.

I am excited about the striker signed from Bundelisga Two side Karlsruher, Rouwen Hennings. Played in the same league as your Hoffman last season. I suspect he could become a Clarets legend.

You seem to de struggling for goals since Ings left. Dyche says this is the most difficult transfer window of his career. Surely with a pot-load of parachute money and a wedge in the bank, you should be able to find a suitable striker no problem (he says as Burnley supposedly table a bid for Andre Gray). 

We are Burnley, from up t’North, we don’t spend money.

Brentford fans remember fondly the Paul Evans goal from 40 yards the last time we played you at Turf Moor in 1999. We wouldn’t have got so excited if he hadn’t done the same thing 7 days earlier versus David Moyes’ Preston. No doubt Turf Moor has changed somewhat in 16 years.

The Turf will look better maintained (is that a deliberate wind-up – ed) but no major changes to the structure since your last visit.  The cricket club is always a good option though.

Saturday is a good time for both teams to put right done wrongs. We discussed on the weekly Beesotted podcast (link below) that Brentford may be without Andre Gray after the club has now accepted two ridiculous £9m bids – one from Hull. One from Bristol City Both deals have stalled but someone will buy him. Maybe Burnley will with Long as a swap???

Our defence is also work in progress after our record signing central midfielder Bjelland going off injured for the season due to our dodgy turf. And right back Moses Odubajo leaving for pastures new in Hull. Whereas you are still finding your feet in a new division. How do you think the game will pan out??

I guess you will give us the run around in the first half and probably take the lead, we will then rally and exciting last 10 will see the Clarets…….errr probably draw

Give us a score prediction

2 -1 Burnley
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Billy Grant

@billythebee99