Opinion: Burnley can take minimal comfort from avoiding wooden spoon ignominy

When a final day draw against a side that hasn’t won a single away game all season is seen as something of a positive, you know it’s been a torrid last nine months or so.

Let’s be honest, finishing 19th or 20th is pretty immaterial. As final day games go, it was akin to two bald men fighting over a comb.

Yet, not finishing stone cold bottom does at least avoid some ignominy, while it also pockets the Clarets an extra £2m or so in “prize” money. Every little helps and all that.

But let’s be real for a minute here, the season has been over for a while now, even before relegation was officially confirmed in April. For a good two or three months we’ve just been waiting for the inevitable so we can all move on and draw a line under this latest disappointment – a third straight demotion from this level.

Still, the players and staff had a job to do. Finishing last, when – despite all of their woes – they haven’t been bottom for a single day this season, would have been the ultimate embarrassment.

But what Sunday’s final day encounter confirmed to us all is that, as bad as Burnley have been this season – and the numbers don’t lie, they’ve been bad – at least someone else has been worse.

Sluggish

For the first 45 minutes though, it looked as though the wooden spoon was heading to East Lancashire, not remaining in the West Midlands.

Even before Wolves’ fifth-minute opener, Burnley had made a really slow, sluggish start to proceedings, struggling to even get out of their own box.

But then we were issued a stark reminder of one thing and one thing in particular that, Burnley and Wolves fans alike, won’t miss in the Championship next season: VAR.

While they came to the right decision in awarding the visiting side an early spot kick, which Adam Armstrong dispatched, it was quite heart-warming to see fans of both clubs come together and chant in unison: “F**k VAR”.

It was one of those modern penalties where, under the current laws, Florentino Luis had to be punished for having his arm out to supposedly block a shot.

Of course he wasn’t blocking a shot at all, he simply didn’t have his arms by his body because he’s not a robot and, believe it or not, limbs move when you stretch or move. But anyway, the season is done now and I’d rather not waste my time talking anymore about VAR than I reasonably have to.

In the interests of balance and fairness, the visitors were well worthy of their first-half lead, so Burnley could have few complaints.

Mike Jackson’s side were slow, sluggish and ponderous in possession, while always looking susceptible on the counter and prone to a silly, basic error. Not a good mixture, I’m sure you’ll agree.

If anything, such was the regularity Burnley were giving the ball away with the simplest of misplaced passes, the hosts could consider themselves fortunate to only be a goal down at the interval.

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But as poor as they were in the first 45, the Clarets deserve credit for emerging a far better outfit virtually immediately after the restart.

Hannibal’s display perhaps summed up Burnley’s performance in a microcosm. Well below-par in the first half, he was a different player in the second. On the front foot, penetrative and full of tempo and intensity.

As Burnley turned things up a notch, it was the midfielder that almost levelled when he danced his way through the Wolves defence before seeing his low effort squirm under the body of goalkeeper Jose Sa, who was fortunate to recover and jump on the ball just as it appeared it was about to roll over the line.

But it was perhaps fitting that Zian Flemming was the man to get Burnley level with a goal that was out of kilter with Burnley’s first-half performance.

The Dutchman, scoring for the 11th time this season, exchanged a quick give and go with Loum Tchaouna on the edge of the box before calmly, coolly picking out the bottom corner with ease.

It was a Premier League-level finish from a Premier League-level player. I’m sure there won’t be a Burnley fan out there that will begrudge him a move to remain in the top flight, because that’s where he belongs.

Big job

The remainder of the game, it has to be said, was something of a basketball affair. Entertaining, at least, but the fact neither side was able to show the quality to find a winner perhaps reflected why they finished where they finished in the league table.

We nearly got the dream ending when Ashley Barnes, surely on for his last Burnley appearance, almost squeezed home a stoppage-time winner after being brought on for one last hurrah.

But as it was, Burnley had to settle for a point which means they finish the season winless at home in 210 days.

Looking at a broader picture, the Clarets’ measly points tally of 22 – two fewer than what they managed under Vincent Kompany, let’s not forget – is the lowest in the club’s history in the three point era.

There’s a big job on this summer for the new man, but that was also the case two years ago and look what transpired then.

While the Clarets continue to search for answers in the top division, they boast an enviable record in the league below.

The huge contradiction in Championship supremacy and Premier League inferiority and the annual swinging between divisions will inevitably come to an end at some point. Let’s just hope it’s not next season.

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