Cardiff Preview

By Longsider
April 16 2004

A win against Cardiff tomorrow will take the Clarets to 50 points. We've got numerous injury problems although David May will be available following his suspension.

Burnley travel to Ninian Park looking for a third consecutive away victory. Wins at Bradford and Walsall haven't seen us move away from the danger zone as we've lost the home games following these victories. Turf Moor has become a difficult place for the players to get results in recent weeks, with the crowd becoming very impatient, so perhaps our best chance of survival is playing away from the Turf.

We've only played at Cardiff once in the last 10 years and that was back on April Fools Day in 2000. We took a two goal lead thanks to Steve Davis and Andy Payton, Ian Cox scored an own goal and then Glen Little was sent off. The Clarets held on though and a few weeks later we were celebrating promotion. Tomorrow's match will be a totally different scenario and a win would go a long way to securing our first division status.

Our performance against Watford was poor although it wasn't helped by the injuries we picked up during the game. Neil Wood and Paul Weller are both extremely doubtful for the game. Richard Chaplow is expected to recover from his dead leg though and should play alongside Tony Grant in the middle.

David May returns from suspension and will surely replace Graham Branch at the back. Branchy could then be pushed out to the left wing although Luke Chadwick may get the nod before him. Dele Adebola is still struggling so he'll remain on the bench.

Cardiff will be without Graham Kavanagh and it is expected that Rhys Weston, Willie Boland and Peter Thorne will all play some part in the game tomorrow. The referee for the game is Michael Jones from Cheshire.

Predicted line up:-

Jensen, Roche, May, McGregor, Camara, Little, Grant, Chaplow, Branch, I.Moore and Robbie Blake.

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