Attitude won’t be an issue for Ward
MONEY, jealousy and spite: welcome to a Premier League dressing room.
Stephen Ward has already experienced relegation from the English top flight with Wolverhampton Wanderers because of that potent cocktail for disaster, so he is adamant not to suffer a similar hangover with Burnley ahead of the new campaign.
The Republic of Ireland international survived two seasons among the elite following promotion in 2009 before relationships among players soured as the wage bill rose with Wolves’ lofty ambitions.
And when Mick McCarthy was sacked in February 2012 the walls soon crumbled in on the oncemighty, three-times champions of England. Relegation as far as League One followed and while they are on steadier ground in the Championship now, the cracks in the foundations can be traced back five years.
‘You know, maybe players were coming in and the wage gap between the players that were there had changed,’ Ward explained. ‘There was a different feel around it. I’m not using that as an excuse, we just weren’t good enough.
‘We need to make sure that we don’t let that happen here. With the infrastructure we have, we will attract players but as the manager says, we’re not the biggest payers in the market, we’re lower end of the market and I think he’ll attract the right players and do his homework.
‘There are going to be a few more new faces but hopefully the nucleus and the values will stay and that will stand us a good stead.
‘So many clubs nowadays, and it happened to me at Wolves, once you stay up the first year, clubs get carried away. I think people can lose that sort of respect of how hard the Premier League is, because when they do it once they think it’s automatically going to happen again.
‘I think that’s one thing our manager will always have, if you offered him 17th place he would probably feel like he’d want us to do better but it would mean that we’ve stayed in the Premier League again, and for a club like Burnley to do that in any way possible for a second consecutive season, it’s a massive, massive achievement.’
Along with the signing of Jonathan Walters and Jack Cork, Burnley also added promising left-back Charlie Taylor to their ranks from Leeds United — another club who paid the price for reckless spending.
Ward turns 32 next month and while he started 37 times in the Premier League last season — no Ireland player managed more appearances — his place is under threat.
‘I knew there was always going to have someone coming in, Flano [Jon Flanagan] went back (to Liverpool) and we don’t really have anyone. We need competition everywhere and that just keeps everyone on the edge.’
Burnley manager Sean Dyche allowed Ward some extra time away to recover after international duty with Ireland and the Portmarnock native has revealed that he played through the pain barrier against Austria in June with a knee cartilage problem.
‘I didn’t really run in the off-season, I just swam, just to give my knee a complete rest,’ he explained.
‘I did a bit of swimming and just a bit of rehab in the gym. So far, I’ve felt the benefit of it and it’s feeling strong at the minute. Everyone’s the same. Johnny [Walters] was in a similar position with his knee and we were speaking about it and the doctor advised to have three weeks rest but it’s difficult as a player because you want to keep ticking over.’
New challenges continue to spring up after a decade in England and that will be no different for Burnley on the pitch.
‘We’ll have to find new ways to win games. Robbie [Brady] has had four or five months now at the back end of last season so he knows how we operate and perform as a team.
‘We’re going in the right direction but it’s just about keeping the right mentality of being that underdog and working.’
Once Burnley lose that, the only way is down.