How Nicky Hayen’s Burnley tenure unravelled so spectacularly in just 106 days

Nicky Hayen has been a dead man walking for some time now - so his departure will come as no surprise.

The smart money would have been on making the call prior to the recent international break. But Alan Pace, known for giving managers time - too much time, if anything - hoped three weeks without a game would prompt an unlikely turnaround.

It started off well enough with that surprise 4-0 thumping at Watford, Burnley’s first league win since February. But as we now know, that result said more about the Hornets than it did about Burnley (although, saying that, they still sit three points ahead of them in the Championship table).

But what followed was a masterclass in self-harm and shooting yourself in the foot.

The Clarets somehow conspired to draw 2-2 with Charlton Athletic, conceding with the last kick of the game, before throwing away the lead to lose 2-1 to Wolves three days later - with both of their goals coming as a result of inexplicable individual mistakes. A recurring theme of Burnley’s season to date, it has to be said.

As a result of that loss to Wolves, Burnley’s winless home league run stretched to an entire year.

While a good chunk of that painful streak came under Scott Parker, at least he had the excuse of facing Premier League opposition. Hayen, meanwhile, has quickly run out of excuses.

Burnley, who have proudly garnered a historical reputation of not being a sacking club, were eventually left with no choice.

The Clarets came into the season as third favourites for promotion. After 12 games, they sit in the relegation zone on eight points and with just one win to their name.

Hayen’s only other victory came via a penalty shootout after drawing with League One Notts County in the Carabao Cup. It counted for little, with fellow third tier side Bradford City swiftly knocking them out on spot kicks in the next round.

The truth is, Hayen is fortunate to have made it this far, but a 4-1 defeat to newly-promoted Lincoln City - in which his players produced an utterly spineless display - proved to be the inevitable final straw.

But it’s fair to say the alarm bells have been ringing for a while.

While Hayen drew early praise for his honesty in media interviews, that open Belgian approach soon became his downfall.

Hayen only served to put pressure on both himself and his players when he described the Derby County game - Burnley’s seventh fixture of the season - as a “must-win”. Lo and behold, the Rams equalised in stoppage-time. Yet still he survived.

But even before that point, he admitted his Burnley side - beset by injuries and lacking any sort of confidence - just needed to “survive” until the international break. He also pledged the Clarets would be a “really good team” upon their return. Well the evidence suggests otherwise.

As recently as Thursday’s press conference, Hayen once again stuck his foot in it with his comments about how he was essentially being forced to use players he didn’t want to as a result of Burnley’s lengthy injury list.

“Now you have players that you have to put on because you don't have anyone else,” he said.

I mean, he’s not necessarily wrong, but you can’t be saying that in public. How is that going to inspire any sort of performance from those players waiting in reserve?

It was the same a couple of weeks ago, when the Belgian basically threw Andreas Hountondji under the bus for not being as good as Dastan Satpayev.

“It's a different player than Andreas to come on,” he remarked. “Even more depth, more speed, more technical ability.”

Those comments came amid his surprise revelation that Chelsea were in charge of when and how often Satpayev could play, as the loanee made his return from a hamstring injury.

Senior figures behind the scenes were left flabbergasted by those comments, which can’t exactly have gone down well at Stamford Bridge either. How to win friends and influence people, eh?

There were other instances where he clearly didn’t help himself, whether it was the performative pre-match huddle by the touchline - with his entire squad and coaching staff - seconds before kick-off at Norwich. Five minutes later, they were 2-0 down. With 21 on the clock, it was 3-0.

Then there was that interview with Kyle Walker where you didn’t exactly need to read in-between the lines to realise there wasn’t a great deal of support for the manager, with the right-back declining to express his sympathy.

Connor Roberts then added further fuel to the fire with his comments while away on international duty with Wales, where he admitted he wished Craig Bellamy had got the job in the summer.

It’s been widely speculated for some time now that a number of players in the dressing room, especially senior ones, weren’t exactly having Hayen. Let’s just say, there’s no smoke without fire.

Even before the season got underway, one player - speaking off record before an interview had got underway - half-joked that he wished Scott Parker was still in charge.

While it might have been a throwaway comment, it was a feeling very much backed up by some staff behind the scenes, who felt Hayen was too abrasive compared to Parker’s gentler approach, and perhaps not as personable.

That, in my opinion at least, points to a molly-coddled culture that was allowed to fester at Gawthorpe for much of last season, where defeats were seemingly excused. But Hayen took it too far the other way and was too honest for his own good at times.

While losses are to be expected in the Premier League, they’re not in the Championship. Certainly not for a Burnley side that, prior to this season’s shambolic start, had lost just five of their previous 115 games in the second tier.

Such is the nature of their horror start and how standards have been allowed to stoop so low, they’ve now lost six of their last 12. It simply couldn’t continue.

Hayen has certainly not had luck on his side. Burnley were without 15 senior players for today’s game at Lincoln, for example. Injuries have hampered them this season, and yet, while we may never know the answer, double and even triple sessions (during the international break) may well have been a contributing factor.

On that note, it’s understood Hayen complained that Walker and Jamie Vardy were unable to take part in those triple sessions due to their age, yet it was him who signed off on Vardy’s signing...

But the former KRC Genk boss was dealt a bad hand, arriving late - having been Burnley’s third or fourth choice - with pre-season already underway.

He flew straight over to the US for Burnley’s pre-season tour but didn’t immediately take charge, instead opting to take a watching brief and a back seat as Mike Jackson and Henrik Jensen oversaw things while he got his feet in the door.

There’s no doubt though he was on the backfoot from the start, arriving just 29 days before the club’s first game.

And then there’s recruitment, where he lost his star striker Zian Flemming in the final moments of the transfer window with no replacement lined up.

Vardy eventually arrived on a free transfer a week or so later but, aged 39, he can’t be relied upon to play three games a week on a regular basis and guess what? He missed today’s game at Lincoln with a back complaint.

He’s inherited a squad of injury-prone players and individuals making their way back from lengthy absences, several of whom believe they probably shouldn’t be playing in the Championship.

He’s clearly been let down in the goalkeeping department too, where it’s understood the ownership were unwilling to sanction the signing of a number one this summer due to previously being told by the data team that Max Weiss would be the man to fill that shirt.

That spectacularly backfired, while number two Gregoire Coudert - who has since come in to fill the brief - has performed just as poorly.

Then there was the bizarre situation in which Marcus Edwards found himself out of Burnley’s 25-man squad list and told he was free to leave, only to be re-registered and thrown straight into the starting XI a couple of weeks later.

It’s understood players struggled to take on board Hayen’s messaging on the training field and that told, with no discernible style or patterns of play visible from game to game.

The attitude of Burnley’s players has been all wrong from the off too. Even before a ball was kicked this season, it was a running joke between me and the Burnley Express’ photographer about how glum the players would look on their arrival to games. Only it wasn’t really funny, was it?

Even players like Josh Laurent, usually gleaming from ear to ear, looked thoroughly depressed. His body language in interviews was excruciatingly telling, too.

Whether it’s Hayen in charge or somebody else, Burnley are still in big trouble. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see there being an instant turnaround in fortunes.

When these players suffer any sort of setback, they simply wilt. While much of that will have been infected in the squad from last season, Hayen didn’t appear to do anything to reverse it. In fact, it only seemed to worsen.

It’s just been that sort of start to the season, where chaos has ruled supreme and everything that could have gone wrong, has done.

For that, Hayen clearly isn’t the only one to blame. This axing after just 106 days is a result of poor decision-making from the very top at Turf Moor. But equally, Hayen can have no complaints either. Both things can be true at the same time.

It’s a shame it hasn’t worked out, I enjoyed my dealings with Hayen and, from a media perspective at least, his honesty was refreshing.

He never had an issue with a difficult line of questioning. He’s a good guy and was dedicated to the role, even taking himself away from his family who remained in Belgium, with his two sons playing academy football back home.

But in this current climate at Turf Moor, he was just wrong guy at the wrong time.