When JJ Watt offered a deal to James Trafford, Burnley’s goalkeeper, about what it would need to coax him out of retirement, it is fair to assume the NFL icon knew the odds were stacked in his favour.
Would he be willing, Trafford had inquired via Whatsapp, to put on his pads for one more season and return to the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals? And Watt had replied that, yes, he would do it on one condition: that Trafford did not concede another goal until the end of the season.
All just a bit of fun, you might think, given that the challenge was made on December 28 and Watt would have been acutely aware, as one of Burnley’s part-owners, that the team had almost half its season to go. And, though Trafford is a highly accomplished goalkeeper, every team lets in a few, right?
Well, not this one, perhaps. Twelve games on, Trafford is keeping to his end of the deal. Burnley have not conceded a goal in the Championship since the 80th minute of a 2-1 win against Watford on December 21. That’s a staggering 63 days. Or, in football terms, 18 hours and 10 minutes of action.
Watt did admit on January 18 that it was “starting to become a bit of a concern” and, since then, Burnley have reeled off another eight shut-outs, the latest coming on Friday in a 4-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday. So how concerned is Watt? How long can Burnley keep this up? And has anyone notified the Bengals (Trafford’s favourite NFL team) about what is being cooked up 3,800 miles away in a small Lancashire town?
This is starting to become a bit of a concern… pic.twitter.com/MrOdjRz2En
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) January 18, 2025
OK, let’s not get too carried away. Burnley still have 14 games to play. The longest-ever run of successive clean sheets was achieved by Manchester United, with 14, in 2008-09. So the chances of Burnley reaching 26? “Extremely slim,” says Trafford. Realistically, it would need something freakish.
It is increasingly likely, however, that Burnley’s reinvention as The Team That Don’t Concede (Many) Goals will see Scott Parker’s men posting the best defensive figures ever recorded by an English side.
“I’ve said it many times,” says Parker. “This team has habits and traits that are badges on our chest. It is something we’re immensely proud of.”
In his previous role as Bournemouth manager, Parker once saw his side lose 9-0 at Liverpool (an ordeal that led to him being fired three days later). This season, his current team have conceded that number in 34 league matches, keeping 25 clean sheets and averaging the fewest goals conceded per game (0.26) of any team since the Football League’s formation in 1888.
Liverpool let in 0.38 goals per game during the 1978-79 season. Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea were not far behind with 0.39 in 2004-05. No other team, however, can match the numbers of a Burnley side that, lest it be forgotten, sieved 78 goals in 38 games while being relegated from the Premier League under Vincent Kompany’s management last season.
Against that backdrop, it came as a bit of a surprise to visit the nearest bookmaker’s to Turf Moor before Friday’s match to be told by the man behind the counter they were not offering odds on Burnley’s defence remaining impregnable until the end of the season.
There were even a few drinkers in the Royal Dyche — the pub named after former manager, Sean Dyche — who were grizzling, pre-kickoff, that they were not entirely satisfied with the current sequence of results.
Parker watches Burnley’s latest shut out from the stands (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Burnley are trying to win promotion back to England’s top division, but it is Leeds United and Sheffield United who occupy the two spots that will guarantee going up. Burnley are third and a look at the league table explains why they are lagging behind.
Nine other teams can match or better Burnley’s total of 43 goals and even Norwich City, in 12th place, have 51 (Leeds have 68). Eleven 0-0 draws — one every three games, in effect — is another telling statistic, especially remembering how Kompany’s team romped to the Championship title two seasons ago, scoring 81 goals in the process.
“If there is one criticism,” Parker said last week, “it is that we need to be more clinical with our chances.”
Burnley, in other words, are very much relying on their defence to make this a promotion season. And the truth is: it is not always hugely exciting. Yet how can anyone be too critical of a side that is creating a piece of history?
“It’s a mindset,” says Maxime Esteve, their commanding young centre-back. “We are not a defensive ‘park-the-bus’ team. But after one, two, three clean sheets in a row, something was created. We are together. Every time, the objective before a game is: don’t concede.”
Esteve, tipped as a future France international, signed from Montpellier a year ago and has cemented his position at the heart of Burnley’s defence this season alongside CJ Egan-Riley, a former Manchester City academy player.
The two centre-backs are both 22 and, at this level, it is often the case that Championship teams will have an older and more experienced player in that position. Here, though, they are keeping out a proven Championship operator in the mould of Joe Worrall, the 28-year-old former Nottingham Forest captain.
Esteve (left) and Egan-Riley have forged a fine central defensive partnership (Burnley FC)
A bond has formed. Esteve is a fluent English speaker, having barely known a word of the language when he arrived in the country. He and Egan-Riley live in the same apartment block in Manchester. They share a lift to training and, in Egan-Riley’s case, he is finally showing English audiences what he is capable of, having been loaned out in the previous two seasons to Dutch club PSV Eindhoven and Hibernian in the Scottish Premier League.
“We hadn’t played together until this season,” says Esteve. “Now we have a very good relationship. The feeling (between us) was straight away. We like to play together, we are happy. We are creating good memories for the rest of our lives.”
Burnley are conceding a goal, on average, every five-and-a-half hours. They have not let in two in any league match. Another five clean sheets will equal the all-time record of 30 in a season, set by Port Vale in the 1953-54 Third Division. Just for good measure, Burnley also shut out Southampton, the Premier League’s bottom club, while eliminating them from the FA Cup.
“We take so much pride in keeping clean sheets,” says Egan-Riley. “It’s not just the defenders. It’s the attackers pressing, the midfielders winning second balls and the desire of everyone to run back and take tackles.”
As for Trafford, another graduate of Manchester City’s academy, his part in this story cannot be overstated — and not just because he has been in goal for 24 of the 25 shutouts.
On January 25, when Sunderland visited Turf Moor in a 0-0 draw, the away side had the opportunity to win the game with an 86th-minute penalty. Trafford dived to his right to keep out Wilson Isidor’s attempt and make himself a hero. But there was still time, astonishingly, for Sunderland to be awarded another penalty, seven minutes into stoppage time. Even more astonishingly, Trafford denied Isidor again.
“I gave away the first penalty,” says Egan-Riley. “When ‘Traf’ saved it, I was thinking, ‘He’s helped me out there.’ I had a feeling he was going to save it. But when they got the second one, it was, ‘Surely he’s not going to save this, too.’ But he just never fails to amaze you.”
Trafford celebrates with his team-mates after his second penalty save against Sunderland (Molly Darlington/Getty Images)
Until this season, the best defensive record for any second-tier side in a 46-game season was registered by Sunderland in 1998-99, with 28 goals conceded. At the current rate, Burnley might take the record with less than half that number. At some point, however, a goal will go in. And that, says Parker, is going to be a challenge for his players. How will they react when it has been two months since they experienced such a phenomenon?
Egan-Riley agrees. “We’ve got a lot of games left, so surely we are going to concede a goal at some point,” says the defender. “We will have to refocus in that moment, because it will be a shock to the system.”
Until then, however, Burnley are the kings of the shutout, the aficionados of defending, more clean sheets than Molly’s Suds — and it might just take them up.
“If there is one thing that stands out in my head tonight, it’s not just the four goals,” Parker said after the victory over Sheffield Wednesday. “It’s Max Esteve blocking a shot on the goal-line and celebrating like he’d scored a goal.”
Heading to the gym… https://t.co/beQvXraI2H
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) February 21, 2025
Egan-Riley, incidentally, is another Bengals fan — a legacy, he says, of watching a television feature on Joe Burrow during his college years.
Watt, meanwhile, reacted to Burnley’s 12th consecutive shutout with a tongue-in-cheek post to his 5.6 million followers on X: “Heading to the gym …”
It was December 2022 when Watt announced his retirement from the NFL and he will be 36 on his next birthday. Will he be sweating about his agreement with Trafford?
“Maybe,” says Egan-Riley. “We’re so proud about keeping clean sheets. So, yeah, maybe he’s getting the jitters a bit.”
(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
