Winless Burnley hit rock bottom as yo-yo dream turns into a nightmare start

Burnley began this season aiming to do something that had never been done before: become a six-time yo-yo club. Instead, 75 days after his appointment and eight games into the campaign, Nicky Hayen is still waiting for his first win, with the Clarets bottom of the Championship with four points.

A club that cannot stay still

Few clubs have lived through such turbulence since Sean Dyche's departure in April 2022. Under Vincent Kompany, Burnley won the 2022-23 Championship title with 101 points before being relegated with just 24 the following year. With Scott Parker they went up again with 100 points, conceding only 16 goals, only to be relegated with four games remaining last season, prompting Parker's exit.

Hayen was entrusted with getting the club back to the top tier, but the odds were stacked against him from the off. After a summer of wholesale changes to the squad, he was appointed just 29 days before the Clarets' first game. Since then, the pattern has been unrelenting.

"Eight games, four points and no wins has the Clarets bottom of the Championship."

Fellow slow starters Preston, Cardiff and Derby — the Rams having rescued a last-gasp draw at Turf Moor on Saturday — are the only other sides averaging fewer than a point per game.

History offers a sliver of hope, but not much

The bad news for Burnley fans is stark: no side has ever been promoted from the Championship having failed to win any of their opening eight fixtures, and of the past 10 occasions only one — Brentford in 2018 — went on to finish in the top half.

The slightly better news is that seven of those 10 slow starters avoided relegation, including Portsmouth two years ago and Sheffield Wednesday the season before that. For a club accustomed to bouncing straight back, avoiding the drop may now feel like the realistic ambition.