Back home and off to Morecambe
Burnley are back home from their trip to Evian and ready to step out onto the pitch in front of supporters in England for the first time since we clinched the Championship at Charlton over ten weeks ago.
It’s the first of five friendlies in the UK prior to the season kicking off and I would think this one will be a low key affair with players, as was the case last Friday, generally getting 45 minutes playing time each.
While we were playing in Nyon last Friday, tonight’s opponents Morecambe were preparing for two games in one day as they welcomed both Blackburn and Bury to the Globe Arena. In a round robin competition they played each other in 30 minutes each way games; Morecambe coming out on top with a 4-0 win against Bury following a 0-0 draw against Blackburn.
As for the Clarets, both Tom Heaton and Stephen Ward have reported back for pre-season training this week, but I wouldn’t have thought either would be considered for tonight’s game. Sam Vokes, who reached the semi-finals of the Euros with Wales, is not due back until next week.
We’ve no new signings as yet ahead of the new season, although the arrivals of both Johann Berg Gudmundsson and Nick Pope from Charlton are considered imminent.
That would suggest it will be the squad who travelled to the training camp who will be involved tonight. I would expect us to select from: Paul Robinson, Conor Mitchell, Matt Lowton, Tendayi Darikwa, Cameron Dummigan, Michael Keane, Ben Mee, James Tarkowski, Kevin Long, Tom Anderson, Danny Lafferty, Dean Marney, David Jones, Fredrik Ulvestad, Aiden O’Neill, George Boyd, Scott Arfield, Michael Kightly, Ashley Barnes, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Rouwen Hennings, Chris Long, Andre Gray.
The last time we faced Morecambe was in the first pre-season game three years ago, the first such game we played under the management of Sean Dyche.
New goalkeepers Tom Heaton and Alex Cisak got half a game each and we had a trialist by the name of Scott Arfield in the side.
The sun, like today, was blazing down but the performance, despite coming just days into pre-season training, wasn’t good enough for some who were calling for the manager’s head. We lost the game 1-0 to a late goal.
Our team that night was: Tom Heaton (Alex Cisak ht), Joseph Mills (Alex Coleman 41), Kevin Long (Michael Duff ht), Jason Shackell (Ben Mee ht), Danny Lafferty (Tom Anderson 74), Keith Treacy (Ross Wallace ht), Dean Marney (Steven Hewitt ht), Brian Stock (Junior Stanislas ht), Scott Arfield (Luke Gallagher 74), Sam Vokes (Jason Gilchrist 74), Danny Ings (George Porter ht). Subs not used: Jack Errington, Archie Love.
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