BURNLEY boss Sean Dyche is hoping for good things from tonight’s friendly with Rangers at Ibrox, including a big following.

The Clarets boss has made it his mission to keep the pre-season fixtures as local as possible so that supporters don’t feel left out.

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But he said a meeting with the famous Scottish club – a first for Burnley since September 1922 – was too good to turn down.

“We try to keep the games as local as we can, but we thought with this one they would travel,” said Dyche. It’s a shame it’s on a Tuesday night instead of a weekend, but that’s just sometimes how the fixtures fall.

“But to have that game I think it’s a real good fixture for us, good for the fans and good for the team.

“Trips are not so easy to involve your fans with, in the planning of trips, but ones that we can we try to keep them as local and as reasonable as we can for the fans because they are a big part of this club and we want them to be.

“They’ve backed us massively over the last couple of years and we want that backing going forward.

“We have tried to keep the games regionalised. The obvious one out of that is the Rangers game, but we think that’s a great game for our fans anyway.

“That’s why we got involved with that one. Obviously it’s a very big club. They’ve had their fair share of challenges – there’s no point in going through that because it’s been well documented – ours is just a football challenge.”

Dyche is also looking forward to a reunion with new Rangers boss Mark Warburton, who he worked with for a short time at Watford.

“There’s a great respect for Mark Warburton, firstly, who I’ve worked with and who is a good friend,” he said.

“We were going up there anyway, but it made it a lot easier to iron out that situation when Mark Warburton was appointed, for obvious reasons, with my connection with him.

“We’ve got another game the next day (behind closed doors) because we want the players to have plenty of game time there.

“It’s just another twist on the psychology of it. I know from the fans’ point of view they think they (players) are paid to run and get fit, but there’s still a psychology to it because you want players fresh and a change of scenery.

“We’ve made vast improvements at Gawthorpe and many more coming, but you still want to go away and have a break from it and get all the players together.

“This year there are two mini trips would be a better way of doing it, and still involving our fans with the trip up to Scotland.”

As for the prospect of potentially playing in front of a crowd of 30,000, Dyche said: “The reality is Mark Warburton will be looking at his players – are they right? Are they ready? We’re a bit earlier obviously so I won’t be looking at it as keenly as that. We’ll be looking at minutes on the pitch.”

Tickets for tonight’s friendly go off sale at 11am today.