Pre-season moves to Scotland

Last updated : 20 July 2015 By Tony Scholes
Michael Keane is back with the squad

When the club first announced a trip to Scotland it was looking likely that the public game would be against Motherwell with the Rangers game expected to be played behind closed doors at Murray Park.

It constantly changed. Ross County were mentioned, so were Partick Thistle and then Kilmarnock but eventually the Rangers game was moved to the Tuesday and I don't think we could have arranged a friendly in Scotland that would have created so much interest and a game that will see around 900 Burnley fans inside Ibrox Stadium.

I've been in the stadium on one previous occasion, but it's some considerable time ago. I travelled to Glasgow to watch our Anglo-Scottish Cup tie against Celtic in 1978 and on the following day we were treated to a tour of the Rangers ground which, I have to say, is somewhat different than it is today.

The squad travelled up to Scotland today and will be there training for a few days before returning home to complete the pre-season with games at Chesterfield and Fleetwood followed by the visit of Bradford City for Michael Duff's testimonial.

It's not the first time we've played at Ibrox but we have to go back 93 years to the last occasion and I was wondering how many of our current players have played there.  Scott Arfield certainly has and could be the only one. His third game for Falkirk was there in a 7-2 defeat and was one of seven appearances he made for them at Ibrox before his move to Huddersfield.

There will be no new recruits for this game. Sean Dyche said on that subject after Saturday's game at Accrington: "There are things in the offing at the moment and a number of different situations. We can push on some, others we have to wait on.

"There are a couple of things that are shifting slowly but surely, and are shifting in our direction. I doubt we would have anyone in before setting off for Scotland but you never know."

Michael Keane will be with the squad in Scotland after missing the trip to France and it will be a case of wait and see whether captain Jason Shackell has recovered from both back and calf injuries and is able to play.

Burnley's squad will be: Tom Heaton, Matt Lowton, Danny Lafferty, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Sam Vokes, Jelle Vossen, Michael Kightly, Alex Cisak, David Jones, Matt Taylor, Luke O'Neill, Marvin Sordell, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Fredrik Ulvestad, George Boyd, Matt Gilks, Stephen Ward, Michael Keane, Steven Hewitt, Tom Anderson, Scott Arfield, Cameron Dummigan.

It's a new look Rangers in every sense this coming season. It's still hard to believe they will be spending a fourth successive season outside of the top flight in Scotland. Since their demise in 2012 they've won two promotions and narrowly missed a third last season, leaving them still one more away from competing in the now named Scottish Premiership.

This season they are under the charges of Mark Warburton who ended last season at Brentford but was forced to move on as they decided on taking a new course.

He'd already brought in new players such as Danny Wilson from Hearts, Wigan's Rob Kiernan and Swindon goalkeeper Wes Foderingham. On Saturday he signed Andy Halliday from Bradford City and today he's been back to Wigan to take both James Tavernier and Martyn Waghorn.

We've been given no clues as to their team; this will be their first and only public pre-season game before their season kicks off this Saturday with a cup game against Hibs.