Welcome back, Burnley are set for their final 16 league games, with a place in Division 1 at stake.  The Clarets have been flying so far, after thirty games they have 75 points, 24 wins, three draws and three losses.  

Kyle Lightbourne is on a personal mission to become a demi-centurion, and he leaves it late against Plymouth.  In fact we were complete dross for 74 minutes, fortunately the last 16 were much better, an undeserved home win but a definite Turf Roar moment.

The game against Plymouth just delayed the inevitable, we weren’t good enough but managed to get a result.  Wycombe were not so accommodating, and despite King Kyle opening the scoring, we are well beaten at home.

Jimmy Crawford has been ok in centre mid, good enough to catch Leeds’ eye, he has a big club release clause (BCRC) so despite refusing the £825k offer he’s off and the tribunal add an extra £25k to the fee, nice.

Despite losing Crawford things go very well at the Bescot on Valentines day.  Kyle with another hat-trick and McVeigh with a fourth, all this despite Coughlan being dismissed for the dreaded deliberate handball in the third minute.

King Kyle loves to score a goal, almost as much as he loves to leave a foot in on the opposition.  As of February 28th he will be facing his second suspension of the season.

To replace Jimmy Crawford I bring in a wild card purchase, Manuel Viard is hard as nails and never gets hurt, he’s also French so all these good numbers could hide a very average French midfielder, that’s all I really need though.

I also bring in Northern Irishman Rodney McAree as midfield competition for Cummins, again his stats look great but he wasn’t getting a game at Tranmere so he might actually be crap.

The new midfield looks good for the first 45 minutes at home to Bristol City, Viard even gets a debut goal, however they disintegrate in the second half. Kyle’s buddy ‘The Goat’ gets the equaliser before Mark Winstanley gets the winner as we lose to Bristol City.  We are only four games into episode three and we have lost nearly as many times as the whole of episodes one and two combined.  The Turf Roar could be turning into a Turf murmur.

Despite Kyle’s suspension we run out 4-1 winners at Gillingham, Glen Little with some rare game time, due to the fact he is the wrong nationality, gets one, as does the Wild Card Viard.  McVeigh also bags a brace in a strong performance.

Glen Little is making the most of his game time, he scores a hat-trick against Preston, it’s somewhat of a false victory considering Glen falls outside of the circle of trust, no matter three points is three points.

Kyle returns from his suspension for the trip to York, he gets a goal, but it is McVeigh, with four who shows his class.  A promising little run is developing, after the up and down start.

As the close of the transfer window approaches, I offload two more pieces of driftwood, neither of whom have kicked a ball for us this season, so £400k seems pretty decent money.

Hopes are high as Oldham visit Turf Moor but after 13 goals in three games we are all scored out and Sean McCarthy’s 31st minute goal is enough to win the tie for the visitors.  Maybe that driftwood was helping us stay afloat.

As deadline day looms, Vince Overson leaves for a whopping £60k as does Gerry Harrison.  Long term transfer target Mark Kennedy joins Celtic, unperturbed, I work into the night to pull off a deadline day double.

Mulryne and Gillespie move straight into the starting eleven, however it’s Patty Bonner who is grabbing the headlines, for all the wrong reasons.  His form seems to be dropping off the proverbial cliff in the final third of the season, a 4 at half time is not good.

Fortunately Kyle is on hand to snatch a second goal and earn The Clarets a draw.

Back at Turf Moor, Patty is a little less shaky and we run out 3-1 winners against Bournemouth thanks to McVeigh and Lightbourne.

McVeigh is suspended for the next game so Little Glen steps in again.  He gets another goal, Mulryne gets his first for the club and Nasty Nasko rounds off a nice 3-1 away win.  Maybe Patty has managed to find a hand hold on that cliff, he seems to have rediscovered some form of late.

Back at Turf Moor, the Lightbourne, McVeigh, Nasty trifecta get the goals to see us to another three points and a few more steps closer to the title. 

The win against Luton takes us to 100 points for the season and what better way to celebrate than a trip to Vicarage Road for an absolute trouncing. 

Lose 1-5, win the league, not your standard situation but we’ve managed to stagger and stumble over the line before being knocked down.

We try in vain to pick ourselves up against Fulham and Chesterfield, however the hangover of the Watford knockout and the League winners’ party linger for a couple of weeks.

King Kyle’s a big Star Wars fan so he uses all his force magic to help us record a first victory in four games on the final day of the season, May the 4th be with you Kyle. Bristol City the unfortunate recipients of his Jedi feet tricks.

With the League won it’s time to share some season stats.  First our appalling disciplinary record.

Nasty Nasko managed 14 assists in 23 games which is quite impressive, as are Scully P’s 12 from centre back, long ball anyone?

Some solid average rating across the majority of the squad, you can ignore Moore, I think he only played one game.

For some reason I missed taking a screenshot of the goals page, however I did snap King Kyle and Pauli McVeigh’s individual pages.  Kyle scored 46% or his career total in one season, pure Bermudan Bad Ass-ery.  McVeigh’s 31 in 42 is also a significant contribution.

The final order of business before we begin our recruitment drive for season two is to offer new contracts to a few of the lads who have the dreaded big club release clause, fortunately they all accept so we won’t have any unexpected departures next year.

I’ll leave it there, a job well done. The struggles toward the end of the season make me think there are a few lads in the squad who have reached their level and we will need to scour the market for some depth and quality in the off season.  Join us next week for season two.