SEAN Dyche will put his Burnley squad through a demanding few days at Gawthorpe this week as pre-season steps up another level.

The Clarets spent last week training at Carton House, in Ireland, with a couple of days of double sessions and ending with Friday's pre-season friendly at Shamrock Rovers.

But the return to familiar surroundings won't see a let up in intensity from Dyche and his staff, who are set to push the players even harder this week.

Burnley have no game during this week, unlike in previous seasons, and instead they will spend the week being pushed to their limits at Gawthorpe.

Dyche has admitted his players are in for a 'couple of really tough days' this week, but the good news for the squad is that they should then turn their attentions more to fine tuning ahead of the start of the new Premier League season on August 12 from next week.

And all of the squad should get some action on the pitch this weekend as Dyche splits his side in two for friendlies against Alfreton Town and Kidderminster Harriers on Saturday.

Of the plans for this week, the Turf Moor chief said: "The workload will increase, there’s a couple of tougher days then we’ve got the two games the next weekend where we’ll split the two teams so everyone will play more game time.

"From there on it start going more into the football. The next week is another week of hard work like this week."

Dyche said last week's hard work in Ireland was about setting a base level of fitness, although he was delighted with the shape his players returned in, while this week is about stepping that up again.

"We’ve put the base in last week, this week we really ramp it up," he said. "There will be a couple of really tough days for the players, a bit more game time this weekend and then we start building into the season on a more structural side, getting tactical with the players, making sure they understand what we want, etc.

"It’s a process we go through and we’re well versed in it now at Burnley."

Dyche was pleased to see all of his side come through the Ireland training camp unscathed.

Most of the side were given 45 minutes against Rovers at the Tallaght Stadium, with Jon Walters and Ashley Barnes withdrawn early as a precaution.

"We were careful with Jon to make sure he’s right, Corky (Jack Cork) and Charlie (Taylor) have adapted very well physically and Barnesy we were being careful as well," Dyche explained.

"A couple of them have put in a lot of work during the week, we have the stats as well not just our eyes, we know who needed what and there were a couple at the end doing a few runs extra to make sure their stats are where they should be."