Team news

McCann back for Clarets
Burnley midfielder Chris McCann returns to the squad for the Barclays Premier League match against Tottenham.

McCann has endured a frustrating campaign - in which the club have been relegated - due to knee injuries.

Clarke Carlisle, who has signed a new two-year deal, is again sidelined because of an ankle problem.

Ledley King could be rested by Spurs boss Harry Redknapp with Champions League qualification already secured.

Redknapp claims King has "defied all logic" by maintaining his peerless form during the club's march to the top four.

King is troubled by a persistent knee injury that restricts his ability to train but has put himself back into England contention with a string of superb performances in the Premier League run-in.

Redknapp is amazed how the centre-back, who is likely to be included in Fabio Capello's squad for South Africa, can churn out such displays in the circumstances.

"How a lad can not train but come out and play against top players as he has, I don't know," he said.

"It's defied all logic, it's amazing. If that's the way to do it, we're wasting our time coming into training every day - we might as well all just turn up on Saturday! "He's a freak really, how he can do that." King has played in Spurs' last three matches - including two in the past week.

Champions League football is now secure thanks to Wednesday's 1-0 win at Manchester City and Redknapp wants to make sure King does not sustain a fresh setback before Capello names his enlarged preliminary squad for the World Cup on Tuesday.

"I would not want to crock him," Redknapp said.

"It is important that if he has got a chance of going to the World Cup, I don't finish him off." Sebastien Bassong is likely to come in at centre-back for King.

Burnley vs Tottenham

Last modified 20:38 09/05/10

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Burnley gatecrashed Tottenham’s Champions League party – and may just have done enough to keep boss Brian Laws in a job.

Relegated Clarets bounced back from 2-0 down to stun Harry Redknapp’s Euro glory boys, who knew their hopes of third place had died the moment Arsenal went ahead against Fulham 200 miles to the south.

Manager Laws looked certain to be a casualty of Burnley’s relegation season but this spirited comeback may just have changed a few minds at Turf Moor.

The Burnley board meet to decide his fate this week and will have noted the mood of the fans, who booed him at the final whistle.

In his defence he will point to his team’s dismantling of Spurs, who had cruised into a two-goal lead through Gareth Bale and Luka Modric.

Normally that’s the cue for Burnley to crumble. This time they conquered.

Laws said: “This performance shows the ability we have here. If we had shown it on a regular basis we would still be in the Premier League.

“Now we have to address that. We swam the channel to get the Premier League and now we have to do it again.’’

Wade Elliott sparked the last-day fightback by pulling a goal back before the interval and by the time his low effort was diverted home by sub Steven Thompson for the fourth goal, the Clarets looked a class act.

Maybe Spurs were suffering a European hangover. Maybe they believed they just had to turn up to win. But from the moment Jack Cork levelled for Burnley, the Londoners were gone at all levels.

Full of fizz against Manchester City in midweek, Spurs were just flat yesterday.

Not that they’ll care too much. The hard work – breaking into the top four – had been done. Yesterday was a fixture too far.

Yet Redknapp’s men had woken to a day full of promise. A day full of dreams of finishing above north London rivals Arsenal for the first time since 1995.

A day to hail a team a win away from boasting their best season in 25 years. How Spurs fans must have wished they spent it hiding their head under the pillow.

Redknapp said: “It was deeply disappointing. Let’s be honest, at 2-0 it wasn’t a game. You couldn’t see a way we could lose it.

“But in the second half they were excellent, They ran all over us and we were a shadow of ourselves.

“A lot of the defending was poor. You can’t be 2-0 up and let them get back like that.”

The Spurs boss was shocked by the way his team faded, especially after breaching one of the Premier League’s leakiest defences with embarrassing ease in the third minute.

All it took was a ball down the line from Younes Kaboul for Aaron Lennon to turn on the after-burner and Burnley’s goose was cooked, Bale slamming home the cross to celebrate his new five-year deal.

The game should have been over when Modric burst into the box and dropped his shoulder to throw Steven Caldwell off balance before crashing home a second.

But Elliott’s finish from Steven Fletcher’s clever flick gave Burnley a chink of light. Spurs were suddenly wavering and loanee Cork ghosted into the box to head past Premier League debutant keeper Ben Alnwick from Martin Paterson’s cross.

Only a superb piece of covering from Ledley King, playing his third game in nine days, stopped Fletcher from converting Paterson’s precise low cross moments later.

But it only delayed the inevitable. The industrious Fletcher nipped between Kaboul and Wilson Palacios to gift Paterson an empty net to roll the ball into.

Sub Thompson secured an £800,000 Burnley bonus for finishing above Hull in table by getting the slightest of touches on Elliott’s low drive for the fourth.

And with the Clarets avoiding a booking, they may yet join Spurs in Europe by slipping in through the back door of the Fair Play league.