BURNLEY boss Eddie Howe has confirmed that Charlie Austin is scheduled to make his first appearance in five months in tonight’s pre-season friendly at Bury.

Austin was Howe’s first signing when he joined the Clarets for £1.2m from Swindon in January but made just four appearances before being ruled out for the rest of the season with a dislocated shoulder.

The 22-year-old had previously suffered a shoulder problem at Swindon five months earlier and, with such an injury often prone to recurrences, Burnley have been particularly cautious about the striker’s return.

Howe opted to leave Austin out of the Clarets’ first pre-season friendly at Altrincham on Saturday, a match that ended in a 4-2 victory, but now seems set to give him 45 minutes in tonight’s game against League One Bury at Gigg Lane, kick-off 7.45pm.

The rest of the Burnley squad all played a half each at Altrincham, when Martin Paterson made his return from a troublesome thigh injury.

“Charlie will be involved,” said the Burnley boss.

“We held him back a little bit because he hadn’t had contact with the lads, but he has trained for five days now.

“He has looked very sharp and has been scoring a lot of goals in training.

“But we will ease him in like we did with the other lads (on Saturday).

“It is an injury that can be very difficult to manage and that was why we took the steps we did and why we were extra careful.

“It was the same with Pato. Obviously there is always a risk when you play football but we didn’t want to rush them and then lose them.”