Lowly Leeds to lament at the Turf?

The fifth and final friendly in the UK and at Turf Moor takes place today with Leeds United the visitors. After today the club will embark on its tour of Austria and will no doubt start water-rafting again before playing their two friendlies out there. It will soon now be 11th August and season kick off time against West Brom at the Turf. One Clarets fan here, cant wait!

Back to today's game though

The Leeds saga is of course continuing and their plight has still not been resolved. Guess we all have to sit back and see how Ken Bates, KMPG and the Football League resolve all this!

Needless to say though Leeds are now amazingly a League 1 club for the first time in their history and that must be a sobering thought to all their fans. You have to feel some sympathy for the Leeds fans despite some of the less-than-friendly taunts the two sets of fans have had to endure over the years!

Leeds are in a pickle to say the least. They are selling their key players; one of them Robbie Blake back to us not to mention Healy to Fulham and Nicholls back to Luton.

Cresswell is the latest to be linked with a move out of the trouble-striken club.

Not only that of course,they are still not allowed to bring any new players into the squad although they have been busy behind the scenes lining folk up if they get the nod.

For today's match therefore they have named all their squad of current fit,professional players on their books,not that many then by their standards

Loach, Hamman, Richardson, Bayly, Heath, Marques, Parker, Lewis, Carole, Prutton, Douglas, Thompson, Howson, Weston, Westlake, Delph, Cresswell, Beckford, Kandol, Elliott.

We wont be seeing their new signing, Leon Constantine from Port Vale, he and Gylfi Einarsson and Shaun Derry are all missing through injury.

But what of the Clarets? Everybody will be hoping Robbie Blake can play against his former club, probably none more so than Robbie himself. However he wont be risked by Steve Cotterill if that thigh strain is showing no signs of significant improvement.

Kyle Lafferty might also sit this one out after a couple of injuries in these pre-season friendlies including being stretchered off at Wrexham and leaving the pitch with a back strain against Boro.

There might also be some doubt about Thomas and Foster playing after both needing stiches following a clash of heads in a farcical incident in the match at Bradford in midweek.

Other than that we can expect all the squad to probably be named with most getting a run-out at some point in the game as Steve Cotterill continues to explore tactics, line-ups and options.

Lets hope for a good match fought in a true friendly spirit both by the two sets of fans and teams alike.