JOEY Gudjonsson could come back into Burnley's starting line-up for the final game of the season tomorrow.

But manager Steve Cotterill is guarding against a Judgement Day'.

The Icelandic international failed to hit the ground running after being signed on a three-and-a-half year deal from AZ Alkmaar in the January transfer window.

But the 26-year-old came back with a vengeance when he was introduced as a first-half substitute for the injured Chris McCann in the Clarets' impressive display at Sunderland last Friday.

Cotterill admitted that Gudjonsson's frustrations at missing out on first-team action had began to show in the build-up to their trip to Wearside.

The former Leicester City ace arrived at Turf Moor with a reputation as a goalscoring midfielder - often in spectacular long-range form - and set-piece master. After making his Clarets debut at home to Stoke he showed glimpses of that promise but never really reached those high expectations and Eric Djemba-Djemba came back into the central midfield frame in mid-March.

Injuries to James O'Connor and McCann have prompted Gudjonsson's end-of-season re-emergence, and he used his aggression to good effect at the Stadium of Light.

If selected against Coventry tomorrow, Cotterill would love more of the same from him.

"It's amazing sometimes, when players get a bit angry, what they do," the Burnley boss said.

"Joey came in at a difficult time and then was pretty much okay with it, and then, for about a week, I think his bad performances were my fault, which is sometimes what happens with lads.

"He came back against Sunderland, I spoke to him afterwards and let him know my thoughts and feelings about where he'd been while he had been out of the team, and certainly let him know my thoughts about how he'd been the week leading up to it, and then in the next breath I said I was delighted with his performance.

"He was excellent, and showed other people what I know he can do.

"He had been out of the picture for a little while, but a week leading up to it I thought he should have hung on in there and been a little better in and around training.

"But our lads want to play, so sometimes when players get the hump a little bit, it's only because they want to play. You can't pick everyone though. It's the pitfalls of the job as a manager.

"It's nothing major. He's a good lad, but for a week, I wouldn't say I enjoyed his company."

Cotterill admitted he felt Gudjonsson hadn't done himself justice with his early Burnley performances but, realising the midfielder was suffering from a shortage of match action, he persevered with him in the hope that it would improve his fitness and have a knock-on effect.

"I thought if you run him for about six games and see how he goes to let him settle in and get used to playing 90 minutes again, because he'd had no games for AZ (Alkmaar), I thought then his performance would improve, but it didn't really," Cotterill said.

"He stuttered with it. So he needed to be taken out of the firing line.

"I pushed Joey for a while and there wasn't too much productivity coming out of him, and I just thought I'd take him out of the firing line so I did that, and when he came back the other day, maybe that was the right decision."