Clarets are primed for Euro bash

IF Burnley beat Leicester at Turf Moor on Saturday the chances are they’ll be back in Europe for the first time since 1967.

Only Southampton winning the FA Cup or Leicester pulling back what would be a nine-point deficit would stop them being in next season’s Europa League.

Which is some achievement for a club who managed only seven points and no wins on the road last season, sold two of their best players, Michael Keane and Andre Gray last summer, and operate on an annual wage bill of £37million. Which is more or less what Arsenal, currently one place above Burnley, will pay Mezut Ozil over the next two years.

Whether those far-flung Europa League Thursday nights will be good or bad for a club with such a small squad is hard to say.

But this is no time for such pessimism. It’s a time to recall how they almost became a non-league club in 1987, and party like it’s 1967.