Bluebirds Come to Turf for Lunch

By Longsider
October 31 2003

I say lunchtime because the game was moved several weeks ago, on police advice, to a 1 o'clock kick off. Its the first time the two sides have met at the Turf for four seasons now.

When on that occassion a Gordon Armstrong and Lenny Johnrose goal was enough to send the Welshmen back home pointless.

We'll be hoping for the same again on Saturday however there is no doubting that this time Cardiff will prove a tougher nut to crack. The visitors have only lost one game in seven and conceding just 3 goals in the process, the Clarets have also only lost once out of the last seven games although we've conceded a slightly higher figure of 13 goals during this time.

It should be a good atmosphere, finally, at the turf with the visitors expecting to bring somewhere in the region of 2,000 fans. The atmosphere will also be slightly increased for the return of Gary 'Tagman' Croft to East Lancashire after his hugely succesful time at our near neighbours at Deadwood.

The visitors have lost Richard Langley, due to suspension, tomorrow however they can welcome back former Middlesbrough striker Andy Campbell and Willie Boland who have both completed suspensions, other than that there are no new injury worries for them. I expect the Clarets to start with the same line up that started the game against Wolves in our Carling Cup defeat so that would mean still no place for either Lee Roche or Gareth Farrelly. We are probably only going to have 4 subs again unless Stan suprises everyone by putting another young lad on the bench.

There's no doubt that Burnley do need to start to get back to winning ways otherwise we might find ourselves in the bottom 6 come tea time tomorrow.

The expected teams:

Jenson, West, Camara, Branch(c), Gnohere, Little, Chaplow, Grant, I.Moore, Blake, Facey
Subs: Roche, Farrelly, O'Neill, Pilkington

Alexander, Croft, Vidmar, Gabbidon, Barker, Boland, Kavanagh, Bonner, Robinson, Earnshaw, Gordon
Subs: Campbell, Gray, Collins, Prior, Margetson.

The referee will be a Premiership one by the name of Howard Webb.