"Big concern" - Pundit reveals issue that Burnley FC and Scott Parker are facing | OneFootball

The Clarets were beaten 1-0 by Neil Harris' side on Sunday afternoon.

Burnley suffered just their second Championship defeat of the season on Sunday away to Millwall, losing out 1-0 at The Den, a result that has raised concerns, particularly for EFL pundit George Elek, the co-host of Not The Top 20 Podcast.

It's been a very up-and-down campaign for the Clarets, who, despite being fourth in the league, have struggled to garner any form of consistency.

The start has not quite been one that supporters had anticipated, especially after beating Luton Town, 4-1, and Cardiff City, 5-0, in their first two games of the season.

While they have not lost many, their failure to blow teams away and score multiple goals in a game has seen them start to lose touch with table toppers Sunderland, with Burnley now six points off the Black Cats in 4th.

Fears that Scott Parker is not changing his ways are starting to pick up, and there will be worries that the gap to the front-runners will only increase as the season progresses.

George Elek makes Burnley claim

Although Burnley's current league position is a good one, the longer this barren spell up front continues, the harder it will be to keep up with the rest of the pack, as currently they do not seem to be able to put teams to the sword.

It is an issue that has been identified by Elek on the 🔥Watford on Fire! Big wins for Leeds, Coventry & Blades. FA Cup Drama & Paul Hurst Sacking episode of Not The Top 20 Podcast (45:20), and he believes that more needs to be done by Parker to avoid any potential drop.

He said: "Millwall’s underlying numbers have been pretty good all season, and they’ve now won three games in a row. Burnley’s underlying numbers have been a pretty big concern all season, and this was the first game that they had lost for quite a long time, dating back to when they were beaten by Sunderland in the league back in August.

"Their games have been basically following the same pattern…

"Basically, every Burnley game is the same, neither team creates loads. Burnley are defensively rock solid. From an attacking perspective, they are really struggling to create anything of note.

"That means you are getting games with normally one of the teams scoring zero or one and the other team scoring zero or one. This is just the first time that one of those games has transpired where the opposition have taken their chance through Jake Cooper and Burnley who created very little, didn’t score any of theirs.

"It’s probably a blueprint for quite a lot of points for Burnley, because they won’t concede a lot of goals, and they’ve got quite a lot of individual quality. They’ll probably do okay."

Elek continued: "I don’t think necessarily it’s a great thing for them, because I can’t see them doing poorly enough for real questions to be asked of Scott Parker, when actually such a poor attacking output with this group of players. With Luca Koleosho on the right-hand side, with Josh Brownhill and Josh Cullen, two midfield players who were the heartbeat of one of the best attacking sides we saw under Vincent Kompany, only a couple of seasons ago.

"With Jaidon Anthony who should be a really good attacking force down the left-hand side. There’s way too much attacking talent there for this team to consistently post such poor numbers and find it so difficult to break teams down, yet that was the case.

"Millwall were fairly comfortable here, they went ahead just before half-time through Cooper, and they saw the game out without really much trouble whatsoever, Burnley not even getting a shot on target.

"I’m pretty concerned for Burnley right now, despite the league position. I think if they don’t improve I can’t see them dropping off massively, but I don’t think their attacking numbers, and we talk about Leeds exerting complete control in games. That control includes being a consistent goalscoring threat, and Burnley haven’t been that for a long time."

Burnley's xG is a huge cause for concern

While they have scored the fifth-most goals in the Championship this season, nine of their 17 strikes came in their first two matches, and without those, they would currently sit bottom of the goalscoring table.

This is backed up the fact that they have the second-lowest xG rate in the division currently with 12.1, only above Plymouth Argyle who are struggling towards the lower end of the Championship, as per FotMob.

Burnley have created only 16 big chances in 2024/25, and are averaging just 3.2 shots on target per match. This is a massive cause for concern for Parker, and although they are currently finding a way to get that one golden chance in a game, if they fail to create that they will start to slide down the league.

They do benefit from the best defence in the division, conceding only six goals in 13 matches, but this cannot be relied upon for the next seven months, and eventually they must start working out a way to form better attacks and cause more issues for their opponents.