'Locked in': Scott Parker discusses Burnley's pre-season plans and outlines friendly hope
Burnley’s promotion-winning heroes are currently enjoying some well-earned rest – and perhaps continuing the celebrations too – following this season’s exploits.
The Clarets jetted off to party in Las Vegas soon after last week’s open-top bus parade, which marked their automatic promotion back to the Premier League.
They’ll then be looking forward to putting their feet up before attention soon turns to pre-season, with a return likely to be pencilled in for the end of June.
Speaking before the season finale against Millwall, manager Scott Parker confirmed Burnley’s pre-season schedule had been arranged.
“They’ve been planned now,” he said. “We started planning about three or four weeks ago for different scenarios.
“They were obviously in pencil because we didn't know where it was, but they're pretty much locked in now.
“We have a rough idea of when we'll be back in and when we'll go away and stuff like that.”
Last summer the Clarets played a number of their friendlies behind closed doors, taking on Barnsley, Celtic, Hearts, Newcastle United and Spanish team Leganes at their Gawthorpe training base.
The team then flew out to Spain for a training camp, where their one and only public friendly came against Cadiz.
Parker, who was a late arrival last summer following the departure of Vincent Kompany, hopes the games will be more accessible to supporters.
“The game schedule at this present time is the only thing that’s not in place, but I hope that is the case,” he said.
“I couldn't tell you for sure now because I wouldn't want to not be concrete in what I'm saying, but I'm almost sure there'll be some games there.”