After securing the Championship record for consecutive clean sheets, Burnley are proving everyone wrong including Sir Alex Ferguson

Sir Alex Ferguson has rarely been proved wrong when it comes to football, but Burnley currently seem to be debunking his claim that “attack wins you games, defence wins you titles”.

It has been 1,100 minutes since a Championship side has breached James Trafford in goal in a spell that dates back to December 21^st when Kwadwo Baah struck for Watford in a 2-1 win for Scott Parker’s side.

This barren run for opposition attacks has resulted in a Championship record of 11 consecutive clean sheets and throughout the season, Burnley have only conceded in nine games, with a sole goal being the most they have let in on any occasion in the league.

They are, by a considerable distance, the best defensive side English football has ever seen. The Clarets concede 0.27 goals per game, while the next sternest defence in EFL history was Gillingham in 1995/96, who registered 0.47 goals per 90.

The closest figure to Burnley’s currently tally is Liverpool’s 1978/79 season with 0.38 across 42 games and the Premier League record, which is held by Jose Mourinho’s 2004/05 Chelsea side managed 0.39.

But the anomaly among Liverpool, Chelsea and Burnley is that Parker’s side look unlikely to win a title and currently sit outside of the automatic promotion spots.

Although the most impressive feature of this defence is that they are a collective of players who are predominantly at the start of their careers and experiencing this level of football for the first time, except Connor Roberts at right-back and James Trafford in goal, who is still on 22-years-old.

Trafford had a struggling season with Burnley in the Premier League and at times was dropped for Arijanet Muric at times with the Clarets relegated to the second division under Vincent Kompany, but now the goalkeeper has a new-found confidence.

Joe Redmond, from the TurfCast podcast, said: “He has been key to this, he has gotten better. This clean sheet record wouldn’t happen without him, he has had some crucial moments. Last season he wasn’t ready for Premier League football but he would go on to have a very good career.

“Looking back though you can see he has learnt a lot from that though, he has a good head on his shoulders. Some young goalkeepers would have crumbled and never recovered from it but he has been fantastic.

“He has grown in confidence, he comes for crosses and he is doing the right decisions and he is thriving in a team rather than being hung out to dry like last season.”

But Trafford is only one part of this story, with CJ Egan-Riley and Maxime Esteve establishing a strong partnership in their first full season at the Lancashire club.

But with these impressive performances comes the swarming interest that might mean Parker will be unable to build on this next season.

Redmond said: “I do believe that Esteve is the best defender in the league and will go on to have a very good career and the style of this clean sheet record is helping this defence grow in confidence every week.

“Egan-Riley, Humphries (who is on loan from Chelsea) and Esteve will all play at the highest level they want to achieve. I think even if we go up we will struggle to keep hold of Esteve and Egan-Riley.

“Egan-Riley is in his last year of his contract, so I am resigned to losing him. We have to keep hold of these lads who have been a main part of this defence if we manage to go up.”

But until now, I have only focused on the final part of Ferguson’s quote, but Burnley have also proved the first part of his quote to be correct.

Burnley’s stellar backline may have also resulted in a stunted attack. Only Liverpool have lost less than the Clarets’ two, which also levels them with Arsenal and Birmingham, but only Preston and West Brom have recorded more than Burnley’s 14 draws.

Within that 11 of those games have ended goalless and across the season their games have a record of 1.45 goals scored by them or opponents, which has created issues at times with fans.

Redmond said: “There have been some poor 0-0s like Stoke at home and Portsmouth away and you do think to yourself sometimes can we attack a little, rather than be obsessed with this clean sheet record.

“I would like to see the shackles taken off a little bit and I do think (our defence-first approach) has hindered us a bit but we also wouldn’t be where we were in the league because we aren’t that great at scoring goals.

“On a whole, the fans are getting more positive, there are some still whinging about the style, but for me it is all about results and we are unbeaten for over 20 games.”

But again there has been progressive signs of more potent attacking displays against the likes of Oxford United and Hull City, but the game against Preston slashed Burnley fans’ optimism that attacking will be the main priority.

Although they, unsurprisingly, kept a 24^th clean sheet in the Lancashire derby, and their 11^th in a row, which means they are three off the record set by a Manchester United side managed by Sir Alex Ferguson.

The cover image for this post was sourced from Wikimedia Commons under the

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Jimmy_Mcllroy_Stand,_Turf_Moor,_Burnley_FC_-_geograph.org.uk_-_762261.jpg), and is attributed to the author,Alexander P Kapp. It was retrieved by me on the 20th February 2025.