We are under no illusions how difficult the game will be

Last updated : 15 August 2009 By Tony Scholes
As you would expect, Owen is confident about the first game and indeed the season, but his counterpart at Stoke Tony Pulis admitted he would rather have not played Burnley, or either of the other promoted clubs, on the opening day.

"To be honest, if I had my way I would go nowhere near a side which has just got promoted for at least six weeks," Pulis admitted.

"Ideally it would have been good for some of the bigger teams to have got hold of them and maybe shook them up a bit, but here we are playing against two sides who have just come up in the first week.

"Make no mistake about it, Saturday will not be easy. Burnley are a very good side who have some very good players. Their supporters will have a real party atmosphere about them and we've got to show what our place is about by giving them a right Britannia welcome.

"It will be like a cup final for them, and you only have to look back to last season to see how well they did against Premier League sides in the cup. If we're not on our mettle we will get a shock."

Meanwhile Owen Coyle, who travelled with the team yesterday as he looked forward to this first Premier League game, said: "I don't have to pinch myself, why should I? We've earned the right to be here and shown consistency that we can play at this level.

"We earned the right. Nobody gave us anything, nobody handed us anything, and we didn't go through a back door. We worked our socks off over 61 games and proved over the piece that we were good enough to be here.

"So now that we are, we will go and compete because we aren't here to make up the numbers. It will be tough, we know that, but we are ready and will give everything we can to try and stay here."

Coyle admitted that he wanted his players to continue where they left off last season and that also means playing in the same way. "We have our philosophies and beliefs, in that we want to get the ball down and play by passing and moving the ball and that won't change," he continued.

"I would hope the players hit the ground running. Some of them have tasted this before, some more fleetingly than they would have liked. It is up to them now when they get the opportunity to make sure that they are on the pitch on a game to game basis."

Coyle won games against the likes of Luis Filipe Scolari, Arsene Wenger and Roy Hodgson last season so has come up against some of the top managers. "Whoever the manager is opposite me doesn't come into my mind," he said. "My concentration is on my team and that's my focus which is to try to get as many points as possible.

"When we play the big teams like Arsenal and Chelsea it's a total mismatch in terms of finance and everything else, so we will always be underdogs in every game."

Our first game is not against one of the big teams, but against a team who were in our position just a year ago. "All credit to Stoke," Owen said. "Tony Pulis has done a remarkable job there and the Britannia Stadium was a fortress for Stoke last year with a wonderful atmosphere and the fans certainly played their part, a thing we are looking forward for our fans to do this year.

"We are under no illusions how difficult the game will be. I don't think anybody enjoys going there with their home results. But in the Premier League every game is a tough, tough game. Nothing is easy about it.

"We just have to go and get to our very best. If we do, I believe we can go and get a positive result at Stoke and really start us off well."