unrest

Since 2010, Burnley have won promotion to the Premier League on five occasions and of their five subsequent relegations they have bounced back immediately three times – but achieving that for a fourth time is looking increasingly unlikely.

After Scott Parker’s departure towards the end of last season, Nicky Hayen was finally brought in as Burnley’s new head coach less than a month before the new Championship campaign started, after a move for Wales boss Craig Bellamy fell through.

“I think there is an element of sympathy among the fans for Hayen but two things can be true at the same time – you can sympathise and also think he’s out of his depth,” said Joe Redmond, creator and host of the Turfcast podcast., external

“He was brought in after pre-season had started, has been forced to work with some coaches left over from Scott Parker and had his main striker, Zian Flemming, sold from under him on transfer deadline day.

“These are clearly errors from the hierarchy but at the same time he clearly isn’t getting the best out of this squad – I’m sure there’s a decent manager in there somewhere but I don’t think he’s what we need right now.”

A total of 11 new players arrived under Hayen during a busy summer of transfer activity with 10 heading for the exit as the Belgian overhauled the squad.

What has followed has been nothing short of a horror show in the lead up to Halloween.

“I look at that squad and it’s been scattergun,” former Watford and Reading midfielder Jobi McAnuff, now an EFL pundit, told the BBC’s podcast 72+.

“They bounce up [to the Premier League], come down, go up, come down and they haven’t handled that well enough – we all knew Flemming was going but you leave it right until the end of the window and you’re killing the manager.

“Then you get [Jamie] Vardy in. I love him but he’s 39 and you cannot expect him to be your main man all season, he’s going to come on and chip in and be great around the dressing room.”

“At the very minimum we should be battling it out at the top end of the table,” added Redmond.

“This squad has proved it’s not good enough for that so far this season but one coming down from the Premier League should be able to compete, and if it can’t then something has gone seriously wrong.”

Riot police clash with protesters for fourth day, as young Albanians protest corruption and poor university conditions

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has blamed “foreign hands” for the increasingly violent student-led protests that are calling on him to resign.

Riot police clashed with protesters outside the education ministry for the fourth day in a row, as thousands of young Albanians marched through the capital, Tirana, on Friday to protest government corruption and poor university conditions.

“This is not a student phenomenon,” Rama said in a video address on Friday. He said there were “foreign hands that do not wish for Albania to be at peace”.

Rama insisted that the protest had “absolutely nothing to do with the hardships, problems or legitimate aspirations of anyone who desires a better life”.

Police officers used water cannon and tear gas as demonstrators hurled rocks.

The protests have spread beyond the capital to Elbasan, Shkodra and Korca, where demonstrators broke windows and set fire to rubbish bins, local media reported.

The ongoing escalation follows months of mostly peaceful demonstrations, originally sparked by the sale of part of Albania’s coastline to a luxury resort development linked to Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

Days of unrest have increasingly targeted banks and government buildings. Protesters hurled bricks and concrete blocks at the education ministry on Tuesday. They also set fire to several buildings across the city, including the prime minister’s office, the finance and justice ministry buildings and branches of several banks.

According to a police statement, 160 people were detained over alleged acts of violence on Thursday evening.

The EU question

Demonstrators are demanding Rama’s resignation, as well as electoral and education reforms.

The prime minister, whose government denies corruption, said he would be ready to discuss rising education costs but rejected the calls to resign.

He said on Thursday, “My responsibility is to listen, address legitimate concerns and keep Albania moving forward.”

His dismissal “would be a betrayal of the Albanians who gave me a strong mandate to complete negotiations on European Union membership”, he added.

Corruption scandals have complicated Albania’s efforts to join the EU. Analysts say the country is a hub for gangs seeking to launder money from drugs and weapons trafficking.

Rama won a fourth term last year on promises to take Albania into the EU, aiming for membership as early as 2028.

Police have detained hundreds as students protest overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and crumbling facilities.

French students have set fire to bins and erected blockades outside schools in several cities, protesting overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and crumbling facilities.

Several school principals were injured, harassed or assaulted during blockades at high schools on Thursday, according to reports from regional education authorities, prefectures and union representatives.

Police have already detained hundreds of protesters at the lycees, which students aged 15 to 18 attend for their final three years of secondary education in France.

At Marseille’s Victor Hugo high school, the teachers were inadvertently splashed as a student attempted to throw petrol into a rubbish bin, local authorities said. Earlier, the prosecutor’s office had ⁠said the teachers had been assaulted and “doused in petrol”.

At another school in the city, Saint-Exupery high school, hundreds of young people surrounded a firetruck that had arrived to put out a blaze in the morning, police said. The attackers forced the firefighters to flee the vehicle, then set it alight.

In Nantes, firefighters extinguished a fire at a high school entrance following what regional education officials called a gathering “marked by violence towards staff”. In Strasbourg, trams were halted to “restrict the movements of rioters and demonstrators”, and students burned barriers on tram tracks, authorities said.

“There are 35 of us per classroom. With 35 degrees Celsius [95 degrees Fahrenheit] in summer, it’s unbearable. There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms,” Raphael, a 17-year-old who withheld his surname for fear of reprisals, told the AFP news agency outside a protest in Strasbourg.

“The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources, not enough supervisors.”

His frustration echoes a wave of student anger that has spread across France since last week, as high school pupils protest and grievances snowball into nationwide unrest.

Some 340 demonstrations were under way outside high schools by mid-morning on Thursday, with more than 160 schools shut down as a result, police said.

University students joined in, blocking access to about 30 campuses, including in Paris and Marseille, according to a student union.

Authorities have reported many dozens of injuries – some from thrown objects, others reportedly from police riot-control projectiles.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said police have opened internal investigations into brutality allegations involving three students.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu convened a crisis meeting and asked ministers to cancel upcoming official travel so authorities could focus on the demonstrations, his office said.

French Education Minister Edouard Geffray said that he would successively meet representative staff unions and parent and student associations on Friday.

The unrest has become entangled in the race to succeed President Emmanuel Macron next May. The government has accused the far-left France Unbowed party of encouraging the protests. Presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said Wednesday that his party “called for nonviolent methods of struggle” and criticised the government’s response as repressive.