Big cup day today for the Clarets
Burnley’s under-23 team are in action this afternoon against Swansea City in the last of our group games in this season’s Premier League Cup.
In what has been a difficult season, as was expected, for the team, the big highlights have come in this competition with away wins at Newcastle and Swansea, who were last season’s winners of the competition. Both are Category 1 clubs and were the two clear favourites to go through to the last sixteen and the knock out stages.
Newcastle are through. They currently have ten points and play their last game today against Colchester whose only points came against us just over two weeks ago. Who goes through with Newcastle will be decided at Curzon Ashton this afternoon.
The maths is simple, the winners go through but Burnley, right now, hold the advantage and only need a draw.
Swansea are expected to bring a strong team today as they continue to defend the trophy, and their coach Cameron Toshack, who was recently linked with the manager’s job at Barnsley, said: “It’s important that we don’t leave the match with any regrets. There’s no hiding place; the players know what they have to do and have prepared very well this week. Burnley certainly proved to be difficult opponents when we played them at home and we won’t be taking them lightly.”
Michael Duff will be hoping to take us through. “We’ve done well so far and it would be nice to finish it off and get through,” he said. “Swansea are a Category One Academy side so we know they have quality, but we did well down there and hopefully we can produce a similar performance. It’s a good test for the lads and part of their development going into a game where they know there is something riding on it. I was pleased with how we played at Bolton last week and with the same sort of commitment and desire hopefully we can get the result we want today.”
This Swansea team have, this season, already beaten Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United in Premier League 2 and, despite our recent 2-0 win in South Wales when Dwight McNeil and Ntumba Massanka scored the goals, it will be a difficult game for us today.
Kick off at Curzon Ashton is 2 p.m.
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