Clarets favourite Glen Little weighs in on Burnley’s sacking of Nicky Hayen

Nicky Hayen can have no complaints with his Burnley sacking, according to Clarets favourite Glen Little.

The 46-year-old was axed on Saturday evening shortly after the 4-1 humbling away to Lincoln City.

Hayen, who lasted just 106 days in the role, won just one of his 12 league games in charge, leaving the Clarets rooted inside the Championship’s relegation zone.

Little, who was on commentary duty for BBC Radio Lancashire at Sincil Bank on Saturday, knew it was only ever going to be a matter of time.

“I said on the radio after the game: “it wouldn’t surprise me if I got home, turned the telly on and he’d gone”. But I didn’t even get home, I’d already got a text message through,” he told the Burnley Express.

“I’m guessing with the time of the announcement the coach wasn’t even back to Burnley, so that must have been a nice phone call on the team bus.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it? You don’t want to see people lose their jobs, but unfortunately it just wasn’t good enough.

“Whether it was him or the players, I guess we’ll see. A new manager is going to come in and we’ll find out.

“It just never got going though, there wasn’t one positive. Okay, there’s Watford, but they got battered 5-0 by Cardiff the following week, so I think we can take that with a pinch of salt.

“They couldn’t even get a win in the cup, or pre-season for that matter.

“People said: ‘oh, but he came in late’, but it wasn’t like it was a week before the season started or anything, so I don’t really want to hear that as an excuse.

“You’ve still had plenty of time to look at the players in training, watch the friendlies, see what team you want to start the season with. But he was picking some strange teams, players out of position, Connor Roberts at left-back, Kyle Walker at centre-back and so on. That’s on him.

“It just wasn’t right from the start and it just got worse as it went on.”

If anything, Little believes Hayen was fortunate to remain in post for as long as he did.

“I said I would have made the change before the international break,” he added.

“That way, the new manager would have three weeks to sort of judge things for himself and get a grip of it.

“But Nicky Hayen said: “no, give me the three weeks”’ and okay, you get the Watford win. But they never followed it up with the two home games and then, when you’re under pressure, there’s always one game where you think: “that’s it”. That’s what Lincoln was.

“You can maybe draw at home with Charlton, because at least you haven’t lost, and the same with Derby, but when you lose 4-1 away to Lincoln, everyone knew that was it.”