Kyle Walker forced Pep Guardiola into doing something he never had as a boss with a decision he ‘didn’t like’, but Burnley are better for his ‘selfish’ call.
When Burnley were last in the Premier League, they had the youngest manager and second youngest squad in the division.
“It’s about what we can afford, and we can afford players from that range, that have maybe not so much experience but have really, really good potential,” said Vincent Kompany of a “strategic decision” for the Clarets not to sign any player older than 29 in their bid for survival.
While it worked for current Bayern Munich manager Kompany, Burnley themselves spent the entire season in the relegation zone and only racked up a double-figure points tally two days before Christmas, which coincided with their first win over a side they hadn’t been promoted alongside.
Scott Parker has helped them learn and implement some important lessons a couple of years later. Burnley are on 10 points from nine games, have beaten their first established top-flight opponent and recorded consecutive Premier League wins for the first time since April 2022 under *checks notes* Mike *checks notes again* Jackson.
It might still ultimately result in glorious failure but this is a different version of the Clarets, one more obdurate, versatile and willing to lean on that “experience” they could not “afford” before.
Having three of the six oldest players to feature in the Premier League this season does help. But while Ashley Barnes is there to uphold standards, sit at the front of the team bus, pick the pre-match music and regale everyone about how he almost joined Chelsea, the other members of Parker’s old guard are leading by consummate example.
Perhaps Kompany simply didn’t realise that the sort of 30-something expertise offered by Martin Dubravka and Kyle Walker was entirely within a sensible price range if the transfer policy allows, wages notwithstanding. If Burnley stay up then £7m will rarely have been spent better.
The last-minute save Dubravka conjured against Wolves was as remarkable and the leadership Walker provided as invaluable as Lyle Foster’s stoppage-time winner. Neither player has missed a minute of the Premier League season and Burnley are far better for it.
For Walker in particular this has been a wonderful career course-correction. It had seemed his time at this level was up long before he forced Manchester City into that conclusion and six months at AC Milan failed to turn the tide. He will certainly not attract that calibre of club again. But a fresh challenge at Turf Moor has been reinvigorating.
The sight of him sprinting back to prevent a two-on-one Wolves counter-attack in the 80th minute of a breathless game at Molineux was incongruous with his last two years or so for club and country.
“I don’t want to say scapegoat because I don’t want to bring out the violins,” he recently told the Daily Telegraph of his final months at Manchester City. “I felt just like I was getting…not blamed. I won’t say blamed but I felt I was the excuse because I was the captain.”
He admitted that he had been “selfish” in removing the armband and leaving his post mid-season – and there is residual frustration at the Etihad over a situation Pep Guardiola “didn’t like”, the Spaniard picking his own captain this season “for the first time in my career” instead of allowing a squad vote to decide.
But Parker need not worry about a similar abdication of responsibility. Walker has helped Burnley acclimatise far better to choppy Premier League waters and this is not a ship the grizzled veteran will abandon before the journey is done.
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