BURNLEY'S players were today continuing their preparations for the crunch FA Cup clash against Fulham on Sunday with warm weather training in Portugal.

The squad flew out to Portugal the day after beating Coventry City and chairman Barry Kilby explained: "The manager wanted to take the players away before the big Cup game and it was the right time to do it. It has been a long season and the players have been looking tired.

"We have got a good deal so we rattled the tin and found a bit of change and we hope it will pay dividends in the weeks to come.

"It is not costing the earth and it is a decision we took for the good of the club. There has been bad weather at Gawthorpe that has made training difficult and this should help us when we play Fulham.

"It is a big game for us and if we can get a result down there it will more than have paid for itself. But come what may it has been the right thing to do."

There are a couple of absentees from the trip with Dimitri Papadopoulos and Gareth Taylor heading off on international duty instead of joining their team-mates.

The younger striker will play for Greece Under-21s against Norway in Crete tonight while Taylor is hoping to win his 11th cap against Bosnia-Herzegovina at the Millennium Stadium tomorrow.

French defender Arthur Gnohere is also elsewhere as he completes a break with his family in France after being told to rest by his manager Stan Ternent.