Sean Dyche Interview - Leadership And Attitude

I liked Dyche and I thought it was an interesting interview. But, as he went on about his expectations of honesty and uprightness in the individuals throughout the club, I couldn't help thinking of their visit to us last season, where they demonstrated the most cynical gamesmanship of the season throughout the game. Not even Bournemouth came close. Not exactly Corinthian Casuals.

 

Why? They are in a very strong position financially and if they do go down they will be in a fantastic position to mount a promotion push. How on earth is lack of debt not relevant to future prospects?

 

They’ve got a team full of Sean Dyche players, as and when he leaves they will need a manager who can get a similar tune out of those players, not impossible, but not guaranteed by any stretch. See Stoke, WBA, etc. Having no debt is just an indicator that they won’t suddenly decide to plunge themselves into debt as and when they ever get relegated again, so like us, they’ll have a year to bounce back and if they don’t then the odds of ever doing so reduce dramatically because they’re clearly not going to chuck money they don’t have at it.

They might get lucky and as and when Dyche leaves they might appoint somebody else who can do the same thing, but history has shown us that’s rarely the case when it comes to a club like them.

 

I honestly don't know what your point is. In the event of relegation you would rather be us with large external debt and "other expenses" which dwarf comparable clubs than Burnley who are debt free but happen to have relied on a very good manager the might struggle to replace? Give me the rock solid base of Burnley every time.

 

Surely my point is pretty clear? Their success is mostly down the manager, remove that manager and it doesn’t really matter how much debt you have or don’t have, surely you can see that?

 

Let me get this straight. If my club has a very successful manager when he leaves it is irrelevant if my club have zero external debt or £5 billion.

Yes I can see that. Got it.

 

You’re getting way too to hung up on the external debt. The external debt is to 23 Capital and is an advance on Guaranteed TV money. Just because we’ve taken an advance on guaranteed money and Burnley haven’t, it doesn’t put them in a better or worse position as and when they’re relegated.

 

A man who takes a payday loan against his guaranteed pay in 3 weeks is doing as well as a man who doesn’t need to??

 

But how does it benefit Burnley as and when they get relegated? If they’ll only spend within their means then they’ve got a year like everyone else, a year after dropping out of the league their income will drop by at least £60m, how does having no debt help them overcome that?

Either way only time will tell, but in the PL era there is absolutely no precedent for a club the size of Burnley run in the way they are surviving long term, beyond the manager that got them the success in the first place.

 

No debt and parachute payments is a good spot. They are simply a far better run club than us. Not
to mention they’ve got another year of premier league revenue at least plus a far better positional payment last season.

 

I know from experience that if you get relegated with no debt, then the funds received for the players who leave can be used to buy replacements. If you get relegated with heavy debt, you have to use those funds to repay the debt.

 

There is still a £60m reduction in income to manage; and in a scenario where Dyche has left and Burnley have been relegated the need to find a manager who can replicate his success with a smaller budget and worse players.

 

Well, obviously. If the budget is smaller it makes the job harder. But that doesn't make it irrelevant how much smaller.

Last time we went down, we had to sell Danny Ings and Kieran Trippier but we had enough in the budget to buy Andre Gray. Who whatever you think of him now, was good enough then to be Championship top scorer and Championship player of the season. If we hadn't had the money to buy Gray, we would have been less likely to succeed.

 

The external debt to 23 Capital is not an advance against the TV money. Its a debt of £70m secured against the ground and the value of the players -after paying the £50m we owe on outstanding transfer fees. The advance (or loan agreement as we don't know what they have borrowed-if anything) against TV money is from Barclays

 

If it’s not against the TV money it’s an advance on player sales, it’s literally what they do:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....ootball-transfers-antoine-griezmann-barcelona

 

Agreed- as long as the players as at the date of the last accounts (as we don't know what our debt position is subsequently and how we funded purchases like Sarr) are worth £120m being the debt plus the outstanding transfer fees -which i believe have priority) then 23Capital will presumably be relaxed about getting their money back without relying on the ground as security.

 

We've borrowed £70m against the value of our player assets (with the ground as back up). And we now have a large drop in revenue to contend with. This doesn't worry you in terms of how the club is run verses Burnley?

 

It’s kind of irrelevant to the original point that I’ve consistently been trying to make.

 

To be honest I really have no idea what your point is. If you borrow against assets and also borrow against future revenue streams (TV money) how on earth are we not in a worse position than Burnley (who have done neither) if we both fall on hard times. It's like saying a man with a 80% mortgage is in as good a spot as a man who owns his house outright if they both get made redundant.

 

I’ve never once said Burnley aren’t in a better position to us, that’s never been the point I’ve been making, it’s just the one you’re relentlessly trying to make.

 

You said “just because we have taken an advance on guaranteed money and Burnley haven’t, it doesn’t put them in a better or worse position than us, as and when they are relegated”. I’m merely pointing out that this statement you made is nonsensical.

 

Sigh, I’m not sure why you insist on taking that quote out of the main point that I was trying to make, which you know full well what it is, but for the avoidance of doubt:

Surely my point is pretty clear? Their success is mostly down the manager, remove that manager and it doesn’t really matter how much debt you have or don’t have, surely you can see that?

 

This is all a little odd. Are you saying Burnley wouldn't be in a better position than us if they were relegated with zero debt?

 

I don’t know where to go from here. Regarding the part in bold you seem to be of the view that if Dyche were to leave then Burnley would be in an equal position whether they had zero debt or owed £100m to external lenders. It’s just illogical.

 

Let's hope he's not a financial advisor.

 

It’s clear you see the role of a manger within a club as an irrelevance so I’m not sure where we go from here either. As far as you’re concerned GT’s success as a manager and ours as a club while he was in charge was purely down to our levels of debt and nothing else.

 

You can't possibly be comparing these two eras of football.

 

It’s cool, I understand. Sean Dyche is just an interchangeable putz, it’s balance sheets that win football matches and build dynasties, I’ve had it wrong all along.

 

This post has no relevance to your claim that Burnley's future fortunes are indifferent to levels of debt post Dyche. I'm simply pointing out that it is inaccurate to claim debt is irrelevant to a club's future prospects.

 

bc

I happen to think that Burnley’s success is heavily weighted towards Dyche, and the overwhelming historical precedent is that once you remove that type of manager clubs struggle to sustain the same level. You happen to think a clubs success is more weighted towards their balance sheet, and the manager has far less importance in the long term success of the club, let’s just leave it at that.

 

What teams have had equal, or better, success straight after losing a long term manager?

I can think of Liverpool in the 80s but no others spring to mind. I'm sure there are more.

You would think that a better balance sheet would make all the difference, but it clearly doesn't. Obviously it helps but poor managers, or poor use of the money negate the positive balance sheet very quickly. Just look at Everton in recent times.

I'm with a19tgg. Dyche is the key to Burnley's success and if/when he leaves, I'm pretty certain they will struggle and probably take a long time to recover whatever their balance sheet is like

 

That may well be the case but whoever they appoint the club could borrow against assets in order to attempt to return to the PL and recover that lost revenue. Everton is a fair point-re poor use of money but their owner just injected £300m as an interest free unsecured loan in the last financial year and another £50m subsequent to that so they are using their own money to make mistakes (they have less debt than us !)

When you borrow from third parties-like we have done and you make mistakes -signings or relegation then you are not generally in control of your own destiny in terms of who you must sell or can buy.

The Pozzo model relies on the manager not being important in the long term success of the club like GT was-Duxbury has said if they are any good they leave and if not they get sacked.

 

They could borrow against assets, but if they haven’t until now why would they? If/when they lose Dyche and potentially find themselves struggling/relegated then if they all of a sudden them decide to gamble and put themselves in debt is that just multiplying the problem?

 

I agree the point that Dyche is a very good manager and the club would be worse off without him.

But the point everyone else is making is that if we do lose Dyche and have to appoint a new manager, we would have a better chance of doing well if we tell the new manager "we have a decent amount of money in reserve and you can use the funds from player sales to rebuild the team" than if we have to say "we are skint and any money from player sales will go to repay the loans".

 

I don’t disagree with any of that, but the post you’re quoting me on is responding to somebody suggesting if Burnley did get relegated, then at that point they could borrow against assets. I don’t see why if they haven’t up until that point, why they would suddenly do so in a far more precarious position.

It’s all moot anyway, Dyche may be there for another ten years, or if he isn’t you may get the succession plan correct, I just happen to think that if you don’t (like Charlton, Stoke, WBA etc) this will far outweigh the strength of your balance sheet.