It’s been a strange start to the season, having to sit out a week of fixtures having played just once because of Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road ground not being ready, but we are back this weekend with the visit of Aston Villa.

This game has been moved too. It’s Sunday because of Villa’s involvement in the Europa Conference League although their game in Edinburgh against Hibs was then moved forward a day to Wednesday which meant we could potentially have played it on the Saturday.

A home game against Villa was always one we could look forward to with some confidence. On 12^th September 1936, they beat us 2-1 at the Turf when, for the record, John Gastall gave us an early lead. Following that game, we won eighteen and drew six of the next twenty-four home league against them, finally succumbing to a 2-1 defeat on New Year’s Day 2020. Chris Wood scored our goal on that day which led to former Burnley captain Tom Heaton suffering a serious injury in the Villa goal. He’s not played in a league game for anyone since.

We did win 3-2 in the following season but were beaten again on their last visit which has now laid to rest all of the blind optimism we always had when they rolled up at Burnley.

The season, as we know, got off to a losing start with Manchester City, who would probably win the Eurovision Song Contest if they entered, rocking up at the Turf, taking an early lead yet again and beating us 3-0.

It wasn’t a hammering. Don’t get me wrong, City deserved to win and deserved the points but there were some real positives from a new look Burnley team that saw five debutants in the starting line-up and another two coming on as substitutes.

In the team that kicked off, only Connor Roberts, Dara O’Shea and Sander Berge and previous made Premier League starts. Both O’Shea and Berge had made 25 starts for West Brom and Sheffield United respectively; Roberts started nineteen Premier League games for Burnley two seasons ago.

Sean Dyche often spoke about Premier League experience being crucial and Vincent Kompany refers to cohesion as his side comes together and gets used to playing. He said that this would be the worst we’d play this season. Maybe that’s not strictly true but the sentiment is, believing that we will improve as a team as the season progresses. He said that’s what we would do last season; he was right, we did.Aston Villa will provide us with another tough game, undoubtedly, but we showed more than enough in the City game for us to know we are more than capable of winning games at this level, and had we got the penalty early in that City game and scored it then we might have even provided an opening day shock.

There were some players who stood out for us and of the debutants there were both Luca Koleosho and Zeki Amdouni, two young players who really impressed at times, particularly during the first half.

The media used to joke about us being an old side in the Premier League but that’s not the case now. Koleosho is just 18, the youngest in the team two weeks ago. There were eight players under the age of 25 and Roberts, at 27, was the old man of the team.

One of the youngest was new goalkeeper James Trafford who came straight in having previously only played League One football for Accrington and Bolton while at Manchester City. Speaking ahead of Sunday’s game, he said: “The City game was very tough, but we took a lot of positives from it and we have a lot of things to work on. I think it will put us in good stead for the Villa game.”

Having signed during the summer, he added: “I’ve settled in really well, I’ve made a lot of friends and I’m really enjoying working with all of the staff and all the players, developing quite a lot and just looking forward to keeping on going.”

I think many were surprised at Trafford’s inclusion for the opening game but it would likely be a bigger surprise if he wasn’t in the side on Sunday. Who will play among the ten in front of him though is anyone’s guess.

Since City, we’ve made three more signings with Wilson Odobert, Hannes Delcroix and Aaron Ramsey arriving from Troyes, Anderlecht and Aston Villa. We will have to wait and see if any of those three are involved but Up the Clarets understands that we can expect to be without Jordan Beyer although it is not thought he has suffered a serious injury despite the speculation.

We will also be without Anass Zaroury. Having been sent off after coming on as a substitute against Manchester City, he will now begin a three-match suspension which will come to an end a week today with red card suspensions inclusive of League Cup games.

A reminder that our team against Manchester City was: James Trafford, Connor Roberts, Ameen Al-Dakhil, Dara O’Shea, Jordan Beyer, Vitinho, Sander Berge, Josh Cullen, Luca Koleosho, Zeki Amdouni, Lyle Foster. Subs: Arijanet Muric, Hjalmar Ekdal, Jack Cork, Josh Brownhill, Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson, Manuel Benson, Nathan Redmond, Jacob Bruun Larsen, Anass Zaroury.

Two days after we’d been beaten by City, Villa went down to a 5-1 defeat at Newcastle. Given the media’s obsession with showing league tables after just one game, it did at least mean we weren’t bottom of the league.

Were Villa poor or were Newcastle really good? It’s always a difficult one to answer but Villa have definitely answered any criticism since. Last weekend they beat a timid looking Everton 4-0 at Villa Park and followed that up with a 5-0 victory against Hibs in the Europa Conference League.

Their five league goals have all been scored by different players. Two of them, Leon Bailey and Douglas Luiz both scored at Hibs where Ollie Watkins, without a goal in the opening two Premier League games, helped himself to a hat trick.

Last season didn’t start too well for Villa. After twelve games, just about a third of the season, they were hovering just above the drop zone. That led to them dispensing with the services of Steven Gerrard, who had never really looked the part as Villa manager, with former Arsenal boss Unai Emery coming in.

They had twelve points from twelve games with three of those coming in a big 4-0 win against Brentford after Gerrard came in. Despite losing his first game in charge, fortunes changed under Emery and in the 25 games that followed they won 49 points which gave them a seventh place finish in the table and that European place.

They haven’t been quite as busy as us in the transfer market this summer with five new recruits. Moussa Diaby (pictured), brought in from Bayer Leverkusen has impressed but is the only one to have started both Premier League games. Pau Torres, from Villareal, has one start and one substitute appearance while Youri Tielemans has come on as a sub in both games. Nicolo Zaniolo, the latest addition, arrived last Friday on loan from Galatasaray and could make a debut.

One player who won’t be in the Villa side tomorrow is defender Tyrone Mings. He suffered a serious knee injury at Newcastle and is out long term as is Emiliano Buendia. Goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, Argentina’s World Cup winning goalkeeper, is a doubt having come off at half time in the game at Hibs.Philippe Coutinho, Leander Dendoncker and Alex Moreno are all ruled out and there will be no brotherly love on the pitch; Jacob Ramsey, Aaron’s brother, is also out of the reckoning.

The Villa team last week against Everton was: Emiliano Martínez, Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres, Lucas Digne, Boubacar Kamara, Douglas Luiz, Leon Bailey, Moussa Diaby, John McGinn, Ollie Watkins. Subs: Robin Olsen, Diego Carlos, Youri Tielemans, Bertrand Traoré, Calum Chambers, Philippe Coutinho, Jhon Durán, Cameron Archer, Filip Marschall.

LAST TIME THEY WERE HERE

Aston Villa arrived at Burnley for our penultimate home game of the 2021/22 season with fans confident of us escaping the drop having won the three previous games against Southampton, Wolves and Watford.

It wasn’t to be our day. With four games remaining in the season, two of those against Villa, we didn’t know at the time but we wouldn’t win again.

We were running out of players. Ben Mee hadn’t played for weeks and Ashley Westwood had suffered a serious injury four games previous at West Ham. Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson was out; so was Jay Rodriguez and there was no Matěj Vydra. Nothing had been said but we later learned he’d sustained an ACL injury in the previous game at Watford.

We needed to start well; we didn’t and ex-Claret Danny Ings gave them the lead in only the seventh minute. We fought back and Wout Weghorst should have scored with a good chance and we paid for that when Villa doubled their lead through Emanuel Bendia.Two down at half time, and things got worse early in the second half with Ollie Watkins making it 3-0 and it was just about all over although Maxwel Cornet did pull one back in stoppage time. Played in by Erik Pieters, Cornet took the ball round the goalkeeper and then, rather than roll it into the unguarded net, he went for the spectacular and hammered it into the top corner.

It counted for nothing though and the game ended at 3-1 for Villa.

The teams were;

Burnley: Nick Pope, Connor Roberts, Nathan Collins, James Tarkowski (Kevin Long 47), Charlie Taylor, Dwight McNeil, Josh Brownhill, Jack Cork, Aaron Lennon (Maxwel Cornet 66), Wout Weghorst, Ashley Barnes (Erik Pieters 72). Subs not used: Wayne Hennessey, Matt Lowton, Phil Bardsley, Bobby Thomas, Dale Stephens, Dara Costelloe.

Aston Villa: Emiliano Martínez, Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Tyrone Mings, Lucas Digne, Calum Chambers (Carney Chukwuemeka 68), John McGinn, Douglas Luiz, Emiliano Buendía (Philippe Coutinho 79), Danny Ings (Ashley Young 74), Ollie Watkins. Subs not used: Robin Olsen, Bertrand Traoré, Josh Feeney, Tim Iroegbunam, Marvelous Nakamba, Morgan Sanson.