SEAN Dyche said the abandonment of Saturday’s Turf Moor friendly against Hannover at half time would not force him into a re-think for his side to face Chelsea.

But the Clarets chief said the loss of the final 45 minutes of Burnley’s pre-season schedule, denying him the chance to get a full 90 minutes into some of his likely Stamford Bridge starters and extra game time into possible substitutes, had been a ‘blow’.

Crowd trouble emanating from the away end, which started around five minutes before the interval, caused the match to be abandoned on police advice at half-time with the Clarets 1-0 up.

Dyche backed the police’s decision to call an early end to the friendly with the Bundesliga side, but said it had affected his plans, and the Clarets could yet try to squeeze a behind closed doors game in this week.

“The team (against Hannover) wasn’t necessarily the team (that will start at Chelsea), but we needed key players to get some more minutes, that way we would have everyone fully match fit. That was a blow on that score,” the Turf boss said.

“This was the finish of the main pre-season plan, so if we can rustle something up, we may do, but the players’ general fitness is good.

“It would have topped up the schedule of who played what, to make sure the whole group had a similar amount of minutes in total.

“We’ve got a really competitive group, so we wanted to get them all to the level we needed.

“Often you get to the end of pre-season and three or four have missed out and are behind the curve, so this was our last chance to get everyone there, and it’s unfortunate.

“Generally the squad is more or less there, it would have been good, some would have played 90, some 60, but we support the police advice.”

Dyche insisted his plans for Saturday’s opening day of the Premier League season hadn’t been impacted.

The likes of Phil Bardsley and Steven Defour could have featured in the second half and pressed their claims for inclusion next week.

And Dyche said some of his regular starters were due to play the full game, but admitted true match fitness will only come once the season is underway.

“Real, true match fitness isn’t gained until into the season anyway,” he said. “Friendlies, whatever way you look at them, are friendlies, players and fans know they are, so there is never quite that same level of intensity, even on the stats, most pre-season games are lower than in the real thing.

“We know some of the fitness comes once the season gets underway, but the idea is to get them as fit and ready before the first match as you can, and we’re pretty much there.

“The second half is when the fatigue element kicks in and real fitness comes from, the end of the game, the last 10 or 15 minutes, that’s what we were looking for today, five or six players to get the end part of a game to top up their fitness and be clear of mind that they’ve had that 90.”