As Fabio Capello prepares his squad for a money spinning international friendly against Brazil in Doha much of the talk amongst Burnley fans has been about whether Tyrone Mears deserves an England call up. The right back has been in blistering form since the start of the season and with a price tag of around half a million pounds is proving to be one of the steals of the season.

Sadly, there is one major stumbling block standing in the way of the Stockport born lad, he has already played for Jamaica despite not having any links to the country. It now turns out not even lashings of Levi Roots' Reggae Reggae Sauce could make the twenty six year old eligible for their national team.

Saturday's thrilling three all draw away at Manchester City was one of those few occasions in football where a single point felt like three.

Having yet to pick up anything away from home so far this season there were few who gave us any chance if turning our fortunes around, especially when Mark Hughes' starting eleven came through with the likes of Tevez, Adebayor and Bellamy all included.

But that very same team also had Kolo Toure and Joleon Lescott at centre half with a midfield packed with largely attack minded players. Reading their line up gave me more confidence than fear as I knew that we could hurt City if they allowed us too much time on the ball and the space to create chances.

The decision of quite a few Hull City fans to come to Turf Moor in Halloween fancy dress was perhaps always going to turn out to be an ominous one, especially when I spotted the Grim Reaper strolling down Harry Potts Way; although I'm still not sure whether he had actually taken the official supporters club travel.

The pressure on the visitor's manager Phil Brown in the week building up to the game had been mounting considerably, which lead him to illogically insist that his players were "one million percent" behind him. So if this game was to be a "six pointer" in terms of Burnley's survival hopes then using Browny's school of maths who knows how many points a win would've been worth to them?

Almost two years ago on a freezing cold Tuesday night in November at Turf Moor one of the worst games of football I'd seen in a long time took place. After an exhausting ninety minutes viewing from my seat in the Bob Lord Stand Phil Brown's Hull City came out one nil winners over Steve Cotterill's Burnley.

That was the last time we were to be known as that as Cotterill was later dismissed by the Burnley board in a sacking probably best remembered for him turning up to his own funeral as he sat looking glumly in the resulting press conference as Chairman Barry Kilby delivered the club's reasoning to the press.

Having been barely able to crack a smile since our derby day defeat on Sunday I've taken the time to digest exactly why we left Ewood Park with no points.

My conclusion? Well, that's pretty simple; Blackburn deserved their victory on the day. That's not because they outplayed us as a football side, instead they earned their victory in typical Sam Allardyce fashion. Rovers were simply more physical than Burnley, they pressed us better and picked up more of the second balls.

It's here, the build up to the first Burnley Blackburn derby in four years is well under way, the first in the top flight for over forty years. This game was top of my list when the fixtures came out, the moment when we can finally face Rovers as fully fledged Premier League equals.

In the FA Cup clash of 2005 and the face offs in the Championship Rovers always had the financial edge with their Premier League bank balance and parachute payments. But none of that matters this time as Owen Coyle has assembled a squad that as a true football team can beat Blackburn on any day of the week.

There's only one way to respond to a heavy defeat in any form of football and that's by winning your next game; for any side newly promoted to the Premier League it's all about that old soccer am coined phrase "bouncebackability" and that's exactly what Owen Colye's team showed on Saturday when Birmingham City came to town.

The only change saw Joey Gudjonsson drop out of the side to make way for the skipper Steven Caldwell in a move that saw Andre Bikey pushed into the middle of midfield. As the game began the players showed no ill effects of the 5-0 defeat to Spurs last weekend as they came flying out of the traps.

Well our away form continued to resemble a retarded abacus against Spurs at the weekend. I'm sure by now even the most unfortunate of children will have mastered their first count to five as it's now a sequence of 2-0, 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0 defeats away from home in the league- if we're not careful that bastard kid will be doing the most complicated times tables by Christmas.

The only thing that's missing in the sequence so far is a one nil away beating, something which I think we'd have taken over the last couple of games away from Turf Moor.

Oh, the joys of waking up on a Sunday morning with the incomparable feeling of another three points towards our survival. Our first Saturday win in the Premier League also saw us score more than once for the first time this campaign and turned a once hated figure into a new Claret and Blue hero.

Owen Coyle fairly decided against making changes to the side that has started every game since winning our opening home game against Manchester United, instead giving the eleven chance to answer some nonsense written about them following the whitewashings against Chelsea and Liverpool.

When in my last piece I spoke of Anfield being a footballing church I didn't expect to be welcomed by the Liverpool fans with a hastily arranged special Saturday service.

Prior to kick off the reds fans roared to their hymn Never Walk Alone which led me to believe that both sets of fans were going to contribute to a fantastic atmosphere. But while the Claret's played their part our opponents were pretty much subdued for the whole ninety minutes despite the 4-0 scoreline; in fact I'm not sure Emmanuel Adebayor or even Kanye West could've got them going.

Thank God for the International break. Prior to the fixtures coming out I was informed by her indoors that I was required to escort her to a friends wedding this coming weekend. My immediate thought was one of dread as I wondered which Burnley game I'd be forced to miss. Thankfully an England Slovenia friendly stepped in allowing me to enjoy the use of the overpriced four star hotel to its maximum.

Although for the price of sitting in a Turkish Sauna this weekend, seven days earlier I could've shelled out for an overdraft busting ticket at Stamford Bridge to watch us play Chelsea.

Unable to head south to watch our 3-0 defeat by Carlo Ancelotti's men due to work commitments I instead had to settle for the fantastic coverage on ESPN (now that's brand loyalty for you).

This Premier League business isn't bad is it? Two wins in a week at the Turf has transformed our reputation amongst the rest of the country from relegation certainties to well, relegation possibilities. The shift may be minimal but at least we're getting some of the respect we deserve.

Anyone who dismissed Wednesday’s win against Manchester United as a fluke will now hopefully be feeling as red faced as a merlot induced Sir Alex Ferguson. Although these naysayers will probably still be branding our wins as lucky due to excuses such as United’s failure to find their flow following the departure of the heavily relied upon Cristiano Ronaldo or the upheaval caused at Everton by Manchester City's harassment of Joleon Lescott.

Read the score line again and savour the moment. For ninety minutes on Wednesday night Turf Moor was back in the swinging sixties as Burnley Football Club revisited its glory years.

Owen Coyle has inspired his team to some great nights over the past year, the cup wins over Chelsea and Arsenal, the performance in the second leg of the Carling Cup Semi Final against Spurs, the playoff victories over Reading and our Wembley promotion; but this was to surpass them all.

Every route to Turf Moor was jammed with Claret as the pubs, chippies and street sellers all benefited from the pre match expectancy that filled the air.

Well our Premier League debut may well have produced a defeat but there were lots of pleasing aspects to take away from yesterday’s performance at the Britannia.

Despite being rattled by Stoke’s arial bombardment when we managed to bring the ball down from its lofty position we looked threatening and definitely produced the more attractive display.

It's strange to think that when the Premier League was formed on the 20th February 1992 that Burnley were well on their way to being crowned champions of the old division four. Since then promotions under Jimmy Mullen, Stan Ternent and Owen Coyle have brought us to the present day, where we're all but 24 hours away from opening our campaign as Premier League Burnley Football Club.

The transformation has been remarkable, seven years prior to winning the league in '92 we were a game against Leyton Orient away from dropping out of the Football League completely. And now tomorrow, 83 days after sealing promotion at Wembley our newest top flight chapter begins away at Stoke after a 33 year absence.

As a Burnley fan there were many chances to win a bit of extra pocket money by betting on the team last season.

While the squad were busy earning promotion to the Premier League and reaching the Carling Cup Semi Final, seeing off Arsenal and Chelsea along the way, those with an eye for a bet (and the spare money) were able to cash in on our success at the bookmakers.

Around ten days ago thousands flocked to L.A to witness a memorial for the King of Pop Michael Jackson. Today expect to see a few less well wishers as the players and staff of Burnley Football Club arrive in the City of Angels for their pre season tour.

The Clarets head stateside for the second year running hoping to recapture some of the American magic that helped them earn promotion to the Premier League last season.

What a marvellous couple of days for Burnley Football Club. Owen Coyle has once again continued his good work in the transfer market by bringing in three new players.

The club's transfer record was smashed on Tuesday as Steven Fletcher made the trip down from bonny Scotland to put pen to paper on his £3m transfer.

The fee doubles the reported price paid for both Martin Paterson and Chris Eagles last summer, meaning that if the BBC's Record Breakers was still on the telly then Owen Coyle's transfer kitty could've become a regular feature for the likes of Ronald Regan Jr, Linford Christie and Kris Akabusi to lament about.

I used to hate Graham Alexander.

When I say hate, I mean the immoderate pantomime loathing reserved for players who associate themselves with Preston North End. You know, the type that makes you shout out things like “Alexander you knob” every time he ran by.

But “Grezza” wasn’t just another Preston player; he was North End’s captain supreme and goalscoring fullback.

This Premier League stuff isn’t bad is it?

In the last few weeks Burnley’s name has been added to the Premier League section of various websites whilst looking at the new league table certainly makes for hours of entertaining reading.

If things aren’t strange enough already then look at me; A Burnley Premier League blogger.

Things got even better up on cloud nine this week when the fixtures came out.