Clarets fans have every reason not to look forward to this weekend.

While fans pile in to Carrow Road and St Andrews to watch Sunday's first legs of the play-off semi-finals they will not be blamed if they head for the garden/the nearest cricket ground/the pub (delete as applicable).

My musical knowledge is fairly limited but the song that sticks in my mind goes something like "Should've Been Me" and as Nigel Worthington, Dave Jones, Mark McGhee and Steve Bruce plot their paths to Cardiff you could not blame Stan Ternent for singing it.

Lord knows, it could've been he!

Sadly the unusually early end to the season means that the Turf Moor faithful, who wept into their pints on Sunday night, have even longer to reflect on the events of the season than in a normal year.

Even as they trooped away from the ground on Sunday the talk was of Gareth Taylor's disallowed goals against Wolves and Preston North End.

Then there was the clearly offside goal for Wolves that followed seconds after their own effort had been chalked off.

What about Walsall's winner at the Bescot Stadium when Marlon Beresford was mugged by three players as he tried to claim a corner, Nottingham Forest's deflected goal at the City Ground, Glen Little's missed penalty at Man City?

But while it is easy to wallow in self pity and reflect on such incidents the exercise is completely and utterly futile.

The players are certainly in no mood to do that as they are the professionals and they know the score.

When they kick off the new season on August 10 it will be the first game of 46 that will decide if the Clarets' long exile from the top flight will finally end.

The game may be against Brighton, Leicester, Derby or Ipswich but whoever they play, in the final analysis, it will count for the same number of points and the same number of goals as the clash against whoever they play nine months later at the end of the season.

So if there is one lesson to be learned from this season, and I have no doubt that there are many, it is that every minute of every game could be vital.

On a personal level I am hoping that the winner of the Wolves and Norwich tie makes it to the Premier League, the former as they were so close to automatic promotion and the latter for purely personal reasons.

With the prospect of trips to Gillingham, Brighton, Selhurst Park (twice) and possibly Ipswich and Cardiff, the long haul to Carrow Road is not a pleasant one!