“We might get relegated but I’m going to be right there in the Championship fighting to get back up, You can’t just jump off the shop because a team isn’t winning” Burnley Co-owner JJ Watt speaks out on Clarets season as he pledges to support club at all times
Burnley co-owner JJ Watt appeared alongside Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Jill Scott, Roy Keane and Ian Wright, covering a wide range of topics, from his own career to his more recent investment at Turf Moor.
He was quizzed on some questions about the English Premier League and his relationship with Burnley
Do you have to plan for the Championship?
“It would be naive of us not to be planning for both scenarios.
“In our board meetings and all of our discussions we are talking about what each scenario would look like.
“Every game I post all about Burnley and every single post is like ‘oh, we’ll see where you are next season when you’re in the Championship, I bet you don’t go to any games in the Championship’.
“Well A) I went to four games in the Championship last year and B) I’m not an investor that’s only going to be here for the Premier League, I’m here for the fight. I’m an athlete, I’m a part of this club now and I want to be here.
“I’m going to be right there in the Championship fighting to get back up. You can’t just jump off the shop because a team isn’t winning.
“Where’s the fun in that? The fun is that yeah, we might get relegated and we might have to fight our way back up, but we’re going to fight. I want to be by their side for that fight.
“I don’t just want to jump to Ipswich because they’re coming up.”
When quizzed on why Burnley haven’t adapted and changed their style in the Premier League?
“We definitely held that mentality for quite a while, but we learned it wasn’t going to be successful so we did have to switch it.
“Vince is obviously a first time manager as well, so he’s going into the Premier League for the first time.“The way we played in the Championship last season was so successful and so dominant, so you think you add players to that, you tweak it a little bit but then you go up and you try it in this league.
“But in this league you’re going up against £1bn and £2bn rosters, sometimes you literally don’t have the ability to do that.
“There’s the difference between Premier League football and Championship football. There are styles you might be able to play in one division that you might not be able to play in the other.
“Then there’s the players required to do each of those styles, so it’s a little bit of trying to find that balancing act, especially now with where we are.
“Okay, if you go back down, do you play this style with this group of players? And if you go back up, do you change that again? It’s constantly a learning cycle and it’s fascinating.
“Coming over from the States, I didn’t quite realise the difference in styles and what might work in the Championship and what works and doesn’t work in the Premier League.”
