SAM Vokes has been keen to remain involved around the Clarets first team as he has battled his way back to fitness over the past eight months.

The 25-year-old made his comeback in a development squad game on Tuesday, playing 45 minutes and scoring, after suffering a cruciate knee ligament injury in the Championship clash with Leicester City at Turf Moor at the end of March.

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Boss Sean Dyche revealed that while some players find it difficult to be around their teammates while they are undergoing long-term rehabilitation, Vokes has always been keen to stay around them where possible.

“Sometimes the player finds that really tough so sometimes you want to separate them from that,” explained Dyche.

“For some players it’s torture to watch a football match when you know you should be out there, not so much in the early stages of a serious injury because you rationally know you can’t be out there, but when it gets closer that can be awful.

“On the other hand some like to be involved all the time, and we often speak to the players, I certainly do, I give them the freedom, I say do you want to be part of what we do? Because I totally understand if not.

“I had some injuries and I found it awkward, I felt it was appropriate to be at games but I found it awkward being there, particularly when I was close to playing.

“Sam’s been good, he’s come away to a couple of games, he’s been at home doing some work before the games. He knows there is light at the end of the tunnel now.”

Bill Shankly famously ignored players in his squad who were injured, as they were no use to him, but that’s not a strategy that Dyche has adopted.

“That’s not my bag,” said the Burnley boss.

“I’ve no problem with that, I had a number of injuries and the only thing I didn’t like was the manager saying ‘aren’t you fit yet?’.

“You might as well stab me in the eye because I’m thinking that every minute of every day and now you’ve just reminded me of it, so I definitely don’t do that.

“I say ‘how you feeling?’, they say how, I say ‘brilliant’, and I ask if they want to get involved, we just have that kind of conversation, but never do I say ‘are you fit? why aren’t you fit yet?’.

“I made that mistake too many times. I remember playing at Bristol City and getting slaughtered, I’d had three weeks training in eight months after having a slipped disc in my back.

“What was I doing? You’re just being stupid, it wasn’t honest, just stupid. I thought ‘yeah, yeah, I’ll play’, I was nowhere near it, nowhere near fit enough.”