STEVE Cotterill is a man with a plan this Christmas. The Burnley manager revealed he has pencilled in his teams for all four festive games in eight gruelling days, starting with the Boxing Day battle against his former club Stoke City at Turf Moor.

And injuries permitting, he plans to have the courage of his convictions to ensure the Clarets have the best possible chance of heading into the New Year with a sackful of points.

He said: "I've got a rough idea in my head how we'll play for the four games and who will play, but we need to wait and see.

"I don't know whether everyone will get a game at the moment because you can write down teams and formations for the whole week, but an injury can cost you.

"But if we do well, you've got to be brave enough to change things and stick to your principles a week before you see the fatigue set in.

"We know that centre halves do the least running in football, so maybe they can last a bit longer than the wide players or full backs. Then there's the strikers, so we've got to bear that in mind.

"I know my teams and the difficult thing is to change it if you win the first one, then the second one.

"The one that throws the biggest spanner in the works at the moment would be Sheffield Wednesday, purely because it's the third game."

The close proximity of all the games is certain to test Cotterill's small squad, with fewer players to call on than most of his Championship counterparts.

And ahead of the final preparations for Monday's visit of Stoke, the Clarets boss joined the growing number of managers angry at seeing their players flogged by four games in just over a week.

Newcastle manager Graeme Souness and Charlton boss Alan Curbishley have both gone public to express their anger at the scheduling of the games.

And Cotterill chipped in: "You don't have time to prepare as you would like with four games in eight days.

"Even Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday is hard and I just don't think it's fair on footballers that they should have to work as many days as they do at this time of year.

"Why couldn't we have had a midweek game last week and scrap one of the games coming up next week? That would have been ideal."

Thankfully, Cotterill has virtually a full strength squad to choose from against Stoke, who have won their last four away games to jump to fifth place in the Championship table.

However, the Clarets know they can leapfrog the Potters and strengthen their own play-off ambitions with a fifth straight Turf Moor victory.

"We've done well at home, certainly of late with five wins on the spin, so it's nice to start the Christmas period with a home game," added Cotterill.

"It's set up for a good game. They've had some great results lately and we know we'll have our work cut out to get the three points."