Can we please try our best to forget about Burnley’s promotion, and Scott Arfield having finally delivered on his potential last year? (And no, the irony of starting a thread with both Arfield and Burnley in the title is not lost on me…)
We should all be able to agree that Arfield did not realise his potential here. Whether that was due to bad management, it not being his time, feng shui or anything else, we’ll never know with absolute certainty.
We should also all be able to agree that Burnley’s achievement last year was very impressive, and they should be applauded.
However, we need to stop using this as some kind of barometer for how we are doing, because both are anomalous events. Generally speaking, most players who don’t cut it at one level will not snapped up on a free and go and achieve what Arfield did within a year. Generally speaking, a team put together on Burnley’s budget who sell their best prospect in the preceding summer will not get promoted to the top flight. And yet Arfield seems to be a stick to beat us with, and Burnley are held up as some kind of benchmark.
Arfield was a nice lad, he started our first Championship season superbly away to Cardiff and then, for whatever reason, was never as good in a Town shirt again. We need to move on – he certainly has.
Burnley did well, but we need to be comparing ourselves more realistically to other clubs at our sort of level.
I suggest a fundraising initiaitve- every time someone mentions them as an indicator of our shortcomings, they donate 50p to YAA....
Just needed to get this off my chest, as every other thread uses these two as some kind of purgatory. Putting my tin hat on now….
