BURNLEY have suffered a double injury blow, with right back Matt Lowton and midfielder Fredrik Ulvestad both doubtful for the start of the new season.

Lowton suffered a shin injury in last week, while Ulvestad lasted just four minutes after his second half introduction in Michael Duff’s testimonial against Bradford City on Saturday, which the Clarets won 2-0.

MORE TOP STORIES:

The Norwegian was carried from the dugout to the tunnel on a stretcher and later went to hospital for what manager Sean Dyche described as a “precautionary X-ray” after over-stretching into a midfield challenge.

“We’ll wait and see what the outcome of that is,” said the Burnley boss, not wanting to make any predictions about the extent of Ulvestad’s injury.

Of Lowton, he added: “He’s got a shin injury, we’re not sure of the length of that but it’s settling down already.

“We’ll just keep an eye on that.

“It’s just a settling down period, I don’t think there’s more to it than that.

“He says it’s settling down but the physios will keep us in the picture as the week builds.”

David Jones returned to the line-up for the final scheduled friendly having missed the midweek win at Fleetwood Town.

The Clarets’ strike force has also been affected by minor injuries during the summer programme, and Dyche added: “We were still a bit cautious with Jonah (David Jones) and with (Jelle) Vossen and Juke (Lukas Jutkiewicz) and we’ve still to get minutes into the other lads, who I thought looked nice and sharp when they came on.

“We’ll manage them wisely and we might get another game in this week to make sure people have had minutes.”

But Dyche is otherwise encouraged by how his players are shaping up for the new 2015/16 season.

“Generally the fitness of the players is getting where it needs to be,” he said.

“I said all along I know it’s hard for supporters but we have to build in stages. We’re getting to the end stage before the real season starts.

“My belief is that you’ve not just got to be full of fitness, you’ve got to be full of energy. It showed on Saturday, the strength of the team to keep going. They kept getting it forward relentlessly. Particularly the middle 15 minutes of the second half, we rode through that, kept the ball and scored the second goal.

“There were good signs but I still demand more. We’re getting there but we need more because we know the challenge that’s coming.

“The only real question I’ve posed the players is that we’ve got to be more clinical, because we created enough chances (against Bradford) to be out of sight.

“We’ve got to take them because that’s the reality of football.

“We looked nice and solid in our own box and defended very well in numbers and got blocks in when we had to.

“At the other end we’ve got to take more of our chances because we created a lot.”

Dyche says he remains active in the transfer market in the countdown to the new season.

And he was encouraged by the performance of latest recruit Tendayi Darikwa, who signed a three-year deal from Chesterfield on Thursday.

“I thought he did well,” said the Burnley boss.

“He only came in on Thursday night. On Friday he didn’t have his boots so we lent him some for training then he travelled home for three hours, got his boots and came back up again - all the stuff that goes with changing clubs.

“It’s a big event in a player’s life.

“To get all of that and still play with the clarity he played with I thought he was excellent.

“There were good signs.

“He’s still developing and still learning the role so we’ve got to make sure we’re aware of that, but he showed really good signs.”