Slate wiped clean for Burnley winger Treacy

The 23-year-old winger, signed from Preston last summer, was in irregular form last term and was eventually loaned out to Sheffield Wednesday, scoring once, as they made the jump back up to the Championship.

Treacy, selected for Giovanni Trapattoni’s Republic of Ireland 22-man squad for the friendly against Serbia in Belgrade on August 15th, whipped in a superb cross centre for Charlie Austin to score his second in the 4-1 win over Altrincham on Saturday, and expertly provided the precise pass for Danny Ings to score a late winner against Bury at Gigg Lane on Tuesday evening.

“I thought Keith was very good and showed flashes of real quality,” said Howe.

“He’s not hurried on the ball, he’s composed and can beat people and he’s a goalscoring threat so we’re wanting to get the best out of him.

“We all know what a talent he is and it’s just a case of realising that talent.

“The slate is always wiped clean as far as we’re concerned. We would love to get the best out of him and we’d love him to stay.

“We believe he can be a real success here and that’s why we signed him. We know the kind of player he can be.

“Keith has trained well, we’ve had no problems or issues with him and he’s got his head down and worked hard just like all the other players have.

“I think that’s been reflected in his last two performances.”

The squad make the 200-plus mile journey to Bath on Sunday and will take in friendlies against Conference South side Bath City on Tuesday, kick-off 7-30 p.m., and League Two outfit Cheltenham Town on Saturday, August 4th, with kick-off at 3 p.m.

Howe insists he’ll step up training and experiment during the games while in Somerset. “We’re moving it on all the time in terms of our training,” he said.

“I think you can see that coming out in the games so from our point of view as coaches we are quite pleased.

“We realise that we’ve still got plenty of work to do because we haven’t touched on anything defensively yet or training without the ball.

“We also haven’t done any real attacking work yet but it’s all planned, so we’ll build up to that.

“Tactics and formations are something we work on nearly every day so you’d like to think they’d be receptive to it. We have experimented this pre-season, we do want to be fluid in our systems.

“I think it’s hugely important that you do have more than one way of playing.

“The lads have been receptive with everything we’ve done with them and I can’t speak highly enough of their attitude.”

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