AS SURPRISES go, the news that Burnley became the first club to be relegated from this season’s Premier League will have taken absolutely no-one unawares. But where did it all go wrong?

1) An underwhelming summer transfer window. No-one was expecting Messi, Ronaldo or Bale to rock up at Turf Moor, but with the notable exceptions of Messrs Boyd and Keane, none of the players recruited in August added anything to “the group.” Burnley essentially tried to take on the Premier League with a Championship squad.

MORE TOP STORIES:

2) No win in the first 10 games. Picking up just four points between mid-August and early November meant the Clarets were constantly playing catch-up.

3) Not enough goals. Burnley twice broke their own club record for the length of time without a top-flight goal. Finding the back of the net on just 27 occasions made them the Premier League’s least prolific outfit.

4) Not picking up enough points against fellow-strugglers. Of the teams in trouble, the Clarets took just 12 points from a possible 30.

5) Throwing away two-goal leads at home to Crystal Palace and West Brom. Those two results alone cost us five points.

6) Paying the penalty. Had Scott Arfield and Matt Taylor converted their spot-kicks against Palace and Leicester respectively, there would have been no guarantee we’d have gone on to win those games, but who’s to say we wouldn’t? Another five points that slipped through our fingers.

7) The January transfer window. Possibly the single biggest factor in the club’s demise. The failure to bolster a paper-thin squad which clearly needed reinforcements was a major failing which just invited trouble, which duly arrived with…

8) Dean Marney’s injury. That noise you could hear when his anterior cruciate ligament tore was the sound of chickens coming home to roost. Marney was no world-beater but he was the heartbeat, the energy and the driving force of our midfield.

9) Inadequate back-up. See points one and seven. When Sean Dyche needed to change things in games recently, his best options from the bench were a winger who never convinced at Championship level and a pair of strikers who managed one goal between them all season.

10) Trying to “contain” our way to safety. Given the limited playing resources at his disposal, no-one could blame the manager for keeping things tight at the back and hoping to nick a goal here and there. Regrettably, the Premier League isn’t an environment which rewards a safety-first approach. It’s all about goals, goals and more goals. See point three.