Burnley boss hails new father Charlie Austin

Austin hadn’t trained with the side over the weekend as his partner gave birth to Avabella, but, pressed into duty in the absence of Martin Paterson and Sam Vokes - away on international duty - and the injured Danny Ings - he responded with a goal, on the back of five in five in pre-season.

Howe said: “I’m really pleased for Charlie. He hasn’t been with us for four days, we haven’t seen him – but he did what he does, he popped up and tucked it away well.

“Charlie is one of those players that needs to train consistently to be right at his best, so we’ll be pleased to get him back in amongst us.

“But he’s on cloud nine at the moment, he had a little baby girl and a goal tonight, so I’m really pleased with him.”

Austin himself admitted: “I needed to play on Tuesday. I needed 90 minutes ahead of the game on Saturday.

“I felt if I didn’t have 90 minutes I might struggle for Saturday.

“It was a good work-out and to get through to the next round of the cup was nice.

“I’m just looking forward to Saturday now, which is the big one.

“It’s a tough start, but we’re all looking forward to it.

“It will be nice to show the fans what we can do, but it’s going to be massive one against Bolton.

“Hopefully the fans will come and watch us try to put on a good display.

“It would be good to get off to a good start and three points would do us fine.”

He is devastated for close friend Ings, who could be out for between three and six months with a knee injury: “I’m close to Danny and it’s a nightmare, especially after what happened last year.

“He was looking really good in pre-season.”

• The Burnley Express has launched a FREE football app which is now available to download on iPhone and Android devices.