STEVE Cotterill has one word to describe Burnley's pre-season campaign. Average.

Four draws, one victory, five goals scored and two conceded add up to Burnley heading into today's Championship curtain raiser away to Crewe Alexandra unbeaten, but with a mixed bag of performances as their preparation.

And the Burnley boss wouldn't have it any other way!

"We don't feel we have hit our straps in pre-season," admitted Cotterill. "Going through the games we've played Cheltenham - average. Accrington - not bad. Malaga - average. Salonika - average. Wacker Burghausen - average.

"We've had an average pre-season and the players still have everything to prove. But perhaps that's the best way.

"It is so hard to gauge because everyone wants to play it up or play it down as it suits them, but I've been a manager for 11 years and in my honest opinion pre-season means absolutely nothing.

"You want your strikers to score to give them that little bit of confidence. But you also want the back four to concede a couple of goals so that you can tell them they're not doing their jobs properly.

"You want the midfielders to be running around and you want them to be stood still so that you can get on their backs for not running around!

"I've learned that everyone has great aspirations, but I've also learned not to take a lot of notice because that isn't going to make a blind bit of difference at Crewe at 3pm tomorrow."

Full marks for honesty. But the truth remains Cotterill's best weapon, keeping him from joining fevered supporters who traditionally begin salivating at the mouth on the eve of every new campaign.

The cold hard facts are that Burnley start the 2005/06 season with less professionals on the books than a year ago.

But continually being written off by bookies and pundits alike only serves to steel the resolve in the Clarets camp.

"We were written off last year, so that's alright. I'm quite happy with that," insisted Cotterill. "You just don't want it to be true, but it's going to be tough for us, we know that.

"The situation has got worse and I don't think we have improved with regard to numbers.

"I've worked quite closely with the chairman over the summer and there's only so many good, free transfers out there and you can't get every one of them.

"We were very, very fortunate to get the ones we got.

"It gets increasingly difficult once the free transfers run out. You end up after Tommy Trialist, and nine out of 10 times they end up being foreign.

"They may look good on the video tape, but I've never seen a bad video!"

Cotterill, who may even struggle to fill the bench for tomorrow's opener due to injuries, added: "At the end of the day, the bigger squads always win because they can afford to have injuries and loss of form.

"We have to try to motivate, cuddle, cajole, kick up the backside, anything to keep our players going for the 46 games.

"But if we can put out a good 11, we'll make it tough for most teams. So fingers crossed and hopefully we'll deserve any bit of luck that falls our way."