So the season may end with a manager Alan Pace appointed at Burnley winning the Champions League. Not for Burnley, admittedly. These days, Vincent Kompany is more popular in Bavaria than Burnley. His successor at Turf Moor, Scott Parker, emulated him by masterminding promotion but now, too, with a tame relegation. It has been a duller demotion: if Kompany’s attempt to reinvent a club intrinsically associated with Dycheball generated intrigue, Parker’s pragmatism has made relegation less hubristic but also, to outsiders, less memorable.
Manchester City confirmed the inevitable, sending Burnley down with four games to go. For a team who had occupied 19th place for five months, it had long been a question of when, not if. A season always brings games that could have gone differently, matches which can be framed as turning points. Burnley can point to cruel late goals scored by Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham and Brentford and Parker forever talked of fine margins. And yet, in the bigger picture, they were a huge distance from safety and the sheer predictability of their departure from the division is damning.
