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West Brom are back at the Turf, and it doesn't seem two minutes since they were last here. They were the next to last visitors last season in a game that was played on a Monday night in front of the television cameras.
There have been big changes at both clubs since then. For the Clarets there's news of the ground development plus four new players whilst for Albion there has been a big turnaround of players with nine new signings made by manager Tony Mowbray.
Despite a late wobble they made the end of season play offs and faced local rivals Wolves. The first leg at Molineux was excellent entertainment as West Brom won 3-2 and they ensured a place at Wembley with a 1-0 win in a somewhat disappointing second leg.
That led to Wembley but they were beaten by Little Billy's Derby in a game they perhaps should have won, and are now set for a second successive season in the Championship. Failure to reach the Premiership again was bound to bring squad changes with players looking to move on and that's certainly been the case.
The biggest surprise is that only three players have moved up into the Premiership. Diomansy Kamara signed for Fulham for £6 million and Wigan had to hand over £5.3 million for Jason Koumas. Towards the end of July defender Paul McShane left for RK Sunderland and that netted the Baggies a further £2.5 million.
Central defender Curtis Davies and left back Paul Robinson were both expected to move on, but for now they are both still there. Davies has made it more than clear he wants away, he's resigned the captaincy and continued to complain that the fee they are demanding, believed to be £10 million, is far too high. It would be no surprise to see him leave by the end of this month and Robinson could well join him through the exit gate.
Only this week they collected another seven figure sum with midfielder Darren Carter moving to Preston in a £1.25 million deal. With all those departures Mowbray has been busy and has brought in no fewer than nine new players as follows.
Shelton Martis from Hibs
Craig Beattie from Celtic
Filipe Teixeira from Academica Coimbre
Leon Barnett from Luton
Carl Hoefkens from Stoke
James Morrison from Middlesbrough
Pele from Southampton
Bostjan Cesar from Marseille (loan)
The signings have cost West Brom around £8 million in transfer fees alone with the most expensive of them Leon Barnett who cost £2.5 million from Luton. He's come in almost certainly to replace the clearly outgoing Davies, also a former Luton defender.
It is a difficult game to predict, both sides have come out of successful pre-seasons but that will count for nothing when the game and the season gets underway tomorrow. It is fair to say we couldn't have had a much tougher start, West brom are one of the favourites for promotion.
Tony Mowbray has strengthened his striking options with the capture of Scottish international Craig Beattie from Celtic in a deal that cost the Baggies a fee of £1.25 million which could rise by a further £500,000.
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He made his debut for them in a Champions League qualifier four years ago against FBK Kaunas and in December 2003 he made his first start, and scored his first goal in a 2-0 Scottish League Cup away tie against Partick Thistle.
For much of the last four years he's been used more as a substitute and has started only 22 league and cup games for Celtic whilst making a further 43 appearances as a sub. He has scored a total of 16 goals in those games.
Those goals include three in successive games at the beginning of the 2005/06 season, becoming the first player to achieve that for Celtic since a player well known to Burnley fans Gerry Creaney.
His move to West Brom is with a three year contract and he's certainly started to find the net for them, hitting a hat trick only last Saturday in a pre-season friendly against Dutch side SC Heerenveen.
He's expected to partner the experienced Kevin Phillips in the Baggies' attack.
It is extremely difficult trying to determine what sort of teams managers will name on the opening day of the season and in West Brom's case with so many players available to them it makes it doubly difficult.
The only thing we can say with any conviction is that Robert Koren will not be in the side, he'll be out for the next month with an eye injury although the latest news is that he's got his sight back in both eyes.
Bostjan Cesar is available after they were successful in securing a work permit but it remains doubtful whether he will start the game. A West Brom source has suggested the following starting line up with a number of players available for the subs bench.
Dean Kiely, Carl Hoefkens, Leon Barnett, Curtis Davies, Paul Robinson, James Morrison, Pele, Filipe Teixeira, Jonathan Greening, Kevin Phillips, Craig Beattie. Subs from: Luke Steele, Luke Daniels, Bostjan Cesar, Shelton Martis, Neil Clement, Martin Albrechtsen, Tininho, Zoltan Gera, Richard Chaplow, Ronnie Wallwork, Nathan Ellington, Sherjill MacDonald.
Steve Cotterill has a bigger squad to select from than at any time since he became Burnley manager three years ago. We've a squad of 21 players with only two of them, youngster Jay Rodriguez and Besart Berisha not having played English league football.
Wayne Thomas is believed to be the only doubt. The former captain has had a difficult pre-season with injury that has ruled him out of all but two of the games and he last played in the draw at Bradford City two and a half weeks ago.
There was much debate last Friday in Bad Goisern that the team which played in the first half against Apollon Limassol could well be the starting line up for West Brom. If so then our team will be as follows:
Gabor Kiraly, Michael Duff, Stephen Foster, Steven Caldwell, Stephen Jordan, Wade Elliott, James O'Connor, Chris McCann, Steve Jones, Andy Gray, Robbie Blake. Subs from: Brian Jensen, Jon Harley, Joey Gudjonsson, John Spicer, Alan Mahon, Besart Berisha, Ade Akinbiyi, Kyle Lafferty.
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Having won the previous three home games, scoring nine goals in doing so, this was a blow to the back in form Clarets. We needed a quick response to get back into the game and we found it courtesy of a mistake by Baggies' keeper Dean Kiely.
I can always remember him taking an unprovoked kick at Robbie Painter after scoring the equaliser on the night we clinched the fourth division title at York in 1992 and so I delight in his mistakes. This one was a howler as he threw the ball out, and just to make it better Andy Gray was offside when the ball found him from Michael Duff to chip it past Kiely.
Even so it looked as though we were heading for a 2-1 deficit at half time, and that's what we did, but just before the interval Paul McShane was sent off by referee Mike Jones after he laid James O'Connor out cold. It looked bad from the stands but Jones was close to the incident and should have seen it was an accident.
Against ten men we got ourselves level just after half time with Gray's second and from then on there was only ever going to be one winner. Time was running out though when Chris McCann got on the end of a Duff cross to head home the winner via his shoulder.
The remaining two games of the season were both lost and so the West Brom home game remains our last competitive win.
The teams last season were;
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Wayne Thomas, Steven Caldwell, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott (John Spicer 79), Eric Djemba-Djemba, James O'Connor (Chris McCann 45), Steve Jones, Andy Gray, Ade Akinbiyi (Paul McVeigh 72). Subs not used: Danny Coyne, Graham Coughlan.
West Brom: Dean Kiely, Martin Albrechtsen, Paul McShane, Chris Perry, Paul Robinson, Zoltan Gera, Robert Koren, Jonathan Greening, Jason Koumas, Nathan Ellington (Richard Chaplow 64), Diomansy Kamara (Kevin Phillips 76). Subs not used: Luke Daniels, Jared Hodgkiss, John Hartson.
Previous 20 Seasons | |||||
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
1992/93 | 2 | h | 2-1 | 14,796 | Harper Conroy |
| . | . | a | 0-2 | 15,722 | . |
1994/95 | 1 | a | 0-1 | 13,539 | . |
| . | . | h | 1-1 | 11,885 | Robinson |
2000/01 | 1 | a | 1-1 | 17,828 | Branch |
| . | . | h | 1-1 | 18,199 | Little |
2001/02 | 1 | a | 0-1 | 21,422 | . |
| . | . | h | 0-2 | 15,846 | . |
2003/04 | 1 | a | 1-4 | 22,489 | Blake |
| . | . | h | 1-1 | 13,106 | Blake |
2006/07 | C | a | 0-3 | 18,707 | . |
| . | . | h | 3-2 | 12,500 | Gray(2) McCann |