Burnley have been accused of ‘cheating the system’ and should be banned from promotion back to the Premier League.
Those were the strong words of talkSPORT’s chief football correspondent Alex Crook after the Clarets were put out of their Premier League misery with last week’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester City.
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The result condemned Burnley to their third relegation in the past five seasons.
There was further upheaval at Turf Moor on Thursday when the club mutually agreed to part ways with manager Scott Parker, with four matches still to play.
Burnley’s record this season makes for dismal reading with just four league wins while boasting the worst defensive record of all 20 top-flight clubs.
Attention will quickly turn to next season’s Championship campaign and the quest to once again, achieve promotion to the Premier League.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
But before they depart for the second tier, Crook had some scathing parting words for the Lancashire club.
“Burnley are heading back where they belong, which is to the Championship,” Crook told talkSPORT’s Fiery Fridays podcast.
“For the second Premier League season in a row for them, they’ve absolutely stunk the place out.
“We all thought Burnley under Scott Parker with their defensive record last season keeping so many clean sheets in the Championship, would come into the Premier League and compete.
“They’ve been absolutely pathetic. Four wins from 34 games and 22 defeats.
“They’ve actually conceded more goals than Wolves who have been even stinkier than them over the course of the season.
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“Any Premier League team signing [Armando] Broja should be a sackable offence.
“They sold their goalkeeper before they’d even kicked a ball in the Premier League. He was a massive part of their success last season.
“And that showed they had no intention of staying in the Premier League. If you’re serious, you don’t sell your best player before you’ve even played your first game.”
Crook then explained why he believes Burnley’s yo-yoing between leagues is exploiting the system by handing them a financial advantage in their attempts to achieve promotion.
“I’m going to use the same argument that got me blacklisted by Norwich. Burnley are basically cheating the system,” Crook claims.
“They are coming up into the Premier League, they’re not making any great effort to compete. They go back down again and get the parachute money.
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“They’ll probably win promotion under the right manager next season and then we’re going to rinse and repeat.”
Bans on promotion?
He then boldly proposed a new rule that would prevent clubs like Burnley from bouncing between leagues so often in what would be a hugely controversial addition to football’s ever-changing rulebook.
“If you get relegated from the Premier League twice in three seasons, you should be banned from winning promotion for the next five years,” Crook suggested.
“I’ve never been to Turf Moor, I’m not sure I’m ever going to be invited after that hot take.”
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