June 5th. 29 days after Burnley rounded off their Championship winning season with a 3-0 win over Cardiff, their players were seen returning to the training ground. It’s a miniscule break in comparison to what other clubs will have.
The play-off final only took place ten days ago so the Luton Town players, who will also be playing in the Premier League, will have far less preparation time than these Burnley stars. In fact, Burnley, and Sheffield United for that matter actually have a slight advantage over all the Premier League sides - as their season’s only concluded on the 28th May.
But Vincent Kompany knows what he is doing. He’s using the same blueprint he put in place at Anderlecht in terms of a ‘pre-pre-season’ and the Belgian side were the fittest in the league according to the distance covered statistic. Burnley’s players have returned for a pre-pre-season training camp, which will include all the fitness tests in Lancashire before they jet off to Portugal for a 10-day training camp. Once they’ve got up to speed in Portugal, and put their mind back to the upcoming season, they will be given another 10 days off to spend with their families and friends on holiday.
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Kompany is getting rid of the Sunday night blues by doing all the difficult stuff early on. By the time Burnley return for pre-season proper later this month, they’ll already have a two-week advantage on most of the other teams - while their players will have been able to fully enjoy their final 10-day break, without the anxiety of a bleep test and strength tests the following day.
It’s genius. Given Burnley had all-but-mathematically been promoted by March, they’ve had months to prepare for the new campaign in the top flight and how they will approach pre-season. Kompany and his fitness staff may have raised a few eyebrows across social media as his players returned to training this week, but they’ve had months to plan out and understand the pros and cons of this decision. It won’t have been taken lightly.
It also won’t include the entire squad. This trip will coincide with the international break which will see some of the likes of Lyle Foster, Johann Berg Gudmundsson, Conor Roberts and Anass Zaroury play for their countries. They will miss the trip, but Burnley still have plans to return to Portugal once their full pre-season begins with a full complement of players, just as they did last summer.
Their plans aren’t completely set in stone however. Like many clubs, they are still searching to fill out their pre-season schedule in terms of games, with an opponent still needed to play at Turf Moor in the final two weeks before the Premier League gets underway on the 12th August.
However, what this pre-pre-season will give them is valuable time. Time to make sure their squad is up to speed when the new campaign begins and time to get any potential signings in through the door once Kompany has assessed his current crop. It worked at Anderlecht and a trip to Portugal worked last season. Now it’s time for Burnley to hit the ground running in the Premier League.
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