Became The Premier League’S Youngest Manager [EN]: Chapter 92

92. New Friends

For the football world, Burnley Football Club’s summer transfer market was, in a word, shocking.

The combination of CEO Helena Cartwright, who held all the power, and Jonathan Landris, the newly appointed Football Director, prioritized overhauling the squad. They coldly, almost ruthlessly, reorganized the existing players while simultaneously bringing in new ones.

All players over the age of 30, except for 30-year-old goalkeeper Nick Pope, left the club either on free transfers or through sales.

And with the transfer funds and freed-up salary budget, they squeezed every penny to sign or loan nine new players, all but one of whom are under 23 years old.

In a single transfer window, Burnley Football Club managed to reduce the average age of its squad from the highest to the lowest in the Premier League.

In this process, the task of replacing the departing veterans with promising young players while maintaining performance fell entirely on Hyungmin and the coaching staff.

However, the club’s board of directors took this into account and agreed that, rather than repeating the miraculous European qualification story of last season, their goal for this season would be a mid-table finish in the Premier League.

Of course, from the perspective of overall strength, Burnley’s squad composition, which was considered a top relegation candidate in the previous season, hadn’t improved much.

Burnley Football Club’s Outgoing Transfers for the 2022 Summer Transfer Market:

– Josh Brownhill, 26 years old. Central Midfielder. Transferred to West Ham for £30 million.

– Johann Berg Guðmundsson, 31 years old. Right Winger. Transferred to Norwich for £7 million.

– Matt Lowton, 33 years old. Right Back. Transferred to Wolverhampton for £7 million.

– Connor Roberts, 26 years old. Right Back. Transferred to Norwich for £2 million.

– Ben Mee, 32 years old. Central Defender. Transferred to Real Sociedad on a free transfer.

– Jay Rodriguez, 32 years old. Right Winger. Transferred to FK Austria Wien on a free transfer.

– Wayne Hennessey, 35 years old. Goalkeeper. Transferred to Wycombe on a free transfer.

– Total Income: £46 million

Burnley Football Club’s Incoming Transfers for the 2022 Summer Transfer Market:

– Karim Adeyemi, 20 years old. Winger. Exercised option to permanently sign from RB Salzburg for £14 million.

– Nicolas Seiwald, 20 years old. Defensive Midfielder. Signed from RB Salzburg for £13 million.

– Benjamin Šeško, 19 years old. Central Striker. Signed from RB Salzburg for £15 million.

– Sebastian Szymański, 23 years old. Central Midfielder. Signed from Dynamo Moscow for £13 million.

– Luka Sučić, 19 years old. Central Midfielder. Signed from RB Salzburg for £8.25 million.

– Guga, 23 years old. Right Back. Signed from Atlético Mineiro for £4.6 million.

– Cristian Medina, 20 years old. Central Midfielder. Signed from Boca Juniors for £4.6 million.

– Jamal Lewis, 24 years old. Left Back. Signed from Newcastle for £4 million.

– Anselmo García MacNulty, 19 years old. Central Defender. Signed from Wolfsburg for £3 million.

– Anel Ahmedhodžić, 23 years old. Central Defender. Signed from Malmö for £2 million.

– Mika Mármol, 21 years old. Left Back. Signed from Barcelona for £1.8 million.

– Total Expenditure: £83.25 million

Burnley Football Club’s Loan Signings for the 2022 Summer Transfer Market:

– Tommaso Pobega, 22 years old. Central Midfielder. Loaned from AC Milan (with a £14 million option to buy).

– Joe Gelhardt, 20 years old. Right Winger. Loaned from Leeds United (with a £15 million option to buy).

– Nico, 20 years old. Central Midfielder. Loan extension from Barcelona (no option to buy).

Burnley succeeded in radically improving the squad’s constitution.

The midfield, which was the weakest area, was primarily reinforced by securing the loan of Tommaso Pobega, who extended his contract with AC Milan.

In addition, they finally concluded the deal by signing Luka Sučić, a young and promising 20-year-old Croatian midfielder from RB Salzburg, for £8.25 million.

Of course, it was an open secret within the Red Bull football group that RB Salzburg’s technical director, Mark Lang, had been bedridden for several days after losing another promising player to Burnley.

And in defense, they signed Bosnian defender Anel Ahmedhodžić from Sweden’s Malmö FF, who was on loan at Bordeaux last season, for a mere £2 million.

In addition, they signed Anselmo García MacNulty, a 19-year-old Spanish central defender prospect from VFL Wolfsburg of the Bundesliga [German Football League], who had previously signed Wout Weghorst, for £3 million, payable in installments over three years.

Anselmo García MacNulty was immediately loaned back to Barcelona for one season, but he is expected to form a central defensive partnership with Nathan Collins for Burnley in the long term.

Meanwhile, repeated requests to re-loan Manchester United’s central midfielder Hannibal and Aston Villa’s central midfielder Jacob Ramsey were denied.

Both clubs, especially Manchester United, who had been wary of Burnley until the very end in the race for Champions League qualification, made no secret of the fact that Burnley was now a target to be actively checked, and rejected the re-loan requests.

On the other hand, Leeds United readily agreed to loan out their promising player, Joe Gelhardt.

This was not only due to the friendship between Hyungmin and Leeds’ new manager, Jesse Marsch, but also to the fact that Patrick Bamford, Rodrigo, and Tyler Roberts, who had adapted well to Jesse Marsch’s new tactics, had gained an advantage in the attack over Joe Gelhardt.

Therefore, the calculation was also that they would develop the promising player through Hyungmin, who is famous for actively using young talents.

Having completed this hellish summer transfer market in just a month and a half, Burnley, under Hyungmin’s leadership, began preparing for the new season by entering pre-season training in July.

***

“Hmm…”

The first pre-season practice match.

In fact, rather than being an important match, the focus is on the new players getting to know each other and the existing players regaining their form after the summer break.

That’s how it should have been, but the expressions on the faces of Burnley’s existing players, who were watching the game played by the newly joined players in front of them, were strained.

“These guys are no joke, are they?”

Charlie Taylor, who had been temporarily relegated to the substitutes as he underwent training to change his position to right back at the manager’s request, said to central striker Wout Weghorst, who was sitting next to him.

Wout Weghorst, who had become the leader of the locker room along with Nick Pope and James Tarkowski, as well as the oldest player, as the veterans left as part of the club’s restructuring.

Now firmly established as a veteran at Burnley, he ignored Charlie Taylor’s words and focused on Benjamin Šeško, the new central striker who had already scored a hat-trick with three goals in the first half alone.

“That guy seems like no joke. He’s only 19 years old, but he joined the Slovakian national team and scored two goals in friendlies this summer alone?”

“Woah… these young guys are no joke.”

Maxwel Cornet, a French striker who was also sitting on the bench watching the game, made a fuss next to Charlie Taylor, who was now in a position to be called a veteran at Burnley.

Wout Weghorst frowned and crossed his arms, pointing out:

“Hmph. That’s because the St. Pauli guys are careless. If you look at it, Dwight and Karim are feeding him everything.”

“No? He scored one with a header from a corner kick, one with a dribbling breakthrough himself, and only got a proper assist for the last one?”

Wout Weghorst flared up at Maxwel Cornet’s comment.

“Just wait! I’ll go in and score four goals right away!”

Wout Weghorst, who had jumped up from his seat, shouted to Hyungmin, who was standing in the technical area watching the game.

“Manager! Wout Weghorst requests to play!”

Looking at the Burnley’s starting central striker’s determined face, Hyungmin said nonchalantly.

“Wout.”

“Yes!”

“Shut up and sit down. I told you in advance that you’d be substituted in when the second half starts.”

Wout Weghorst quietly sat back down next to his giggling veteran teammates, sensing the manager’s tone, which seemed to say, ‘Don’t make me say it again.’

***

Generally, Premier League clubs set up camps in specific countries with warm climates and adequate training facilities during the pre-season, or even conduct tours that rotate through several countries.

In particular, large clubs plan tours in markets such as the United States or Asia, where there are few opportunities to watch games directly, in order to simultaneously expand their finances and fan base through friendly matches.

However, tours to the United States or Asia are out of the question for small clubs like Burnley.

Not only would they not be invited, but even if they did go, it was obvious that they would only tire out their weak squad and ruin the start of the season.

Therefore, Burnley had previously set up camps in Central Europe or Southern European countries along the Mediterranean coast, where the weather is usually good, but this pre-season, they have to conduct the Community Shield [annual match between the champions of the previous Premier League season and the FA Cup winners] and the Ben Mee testimonial match [a match organized to honor a player’s long service to a club], so they cannot be away from England for a long time.

Inevitably, Football Director Jonathan Landris, after consulting with the club’s board of directors, Hyungmin, and the coaching staff, planned a pre-season schedule that would involve training and practice matches in Germany, Greece, and England.

And this put considerable pressure on Hyungmin and Burnley’s coaching staff.

“Ah… this is going to be quite tough, isn’t it?”

Carolina Stefan, the new head coach of Burnley’s first team, casually said something that would have turned the RB Salzburg players pale.

However, Hyungmin, who was standing next to her watching the training, nodded in agreement with a sigh.

Aside from everything else, the teamwork between the players is too poor.

Burnley had no choice but to drastically reorganize the team.

As a result, a whopping 10 of the 22 first-team players who joined this summer transfer market are new.

In addition, even the existing players, such as Abdu Diallo and Nico Gonzalez, joined in the winter transfer market last season, so they are relatively unfamiliar, and Bailey Peacock-Farrell had been on loan to another club all season, so there was no chance to work together.

“…We’ll have to start physical training from the beginning again.”

Fitness coach Paulo Morais said, looking at the data on the tablet with a gloomy expression.

He, Hyungmin and Arthur had worked together for a whole season to raise the players to the point where they could press forward for 90 minutes, but as the team was reorganized, the number of players who had undergone the existing high-intensity physical training was reduced by half again.

However, it is not possible to form the starting lineup only with the existing players who have been with the team since last season, and in modern football, forward pressing is worse than not doing it at all if everyone on the team cannot do it.

The Burnley manager and coaching staff, who were looking at the training ground with gloomy expressions, looked at each other and nodded solemnly.

Okay, let’s just push them hard.

They won’t die, will they?