While Burnley's pre-season schedule continues apace at Accrington Stanley tomorrow, and Glentoran on Monday, Coyle is aiming, after the tours of America and Scotland, to make progress on a couple of targets.

Those targets remain close-guarded.
But Latvian international striker Gatis Kalnins will not be one of them, after disappointing in two runs outs at Partick Thistle and St Johnstone.

Coyle is giving little away, but he said: "We're still looking to add one or two to our squad.

"We'll continue our search for players, and hopefully one or two things will transpire next week."

Ahead of the trip to the Fraser Eagle Stadium tomorrow, Coyle is keeping his fingers crossed that Kevin McDonald will shake off a knock picked up in training to play, while Remco van der Schaaf is expected to play some part, having missed the last four games with a niggling thigh problem.

McDonald sat out the win at McDiarmid Park, and Coyle said: "It's a shame because he's pretty much from up the road, and his parents and family were coming, but it was more important we didn't make it any worse, so we took a precautionary measure."

And of van der Schaaf: "Remco's fine, he might play part of the game at Accrington, certainly not 90 minutes, but we might get an hour out of him.

"He's been working hard, and he has a tremendous pedigree, so it will be nice to get him on the pitch again."

Coyle is looking forward to another test closer to home, with a touch of local pride at stake: "We've seen the reserves play at Accrington last year, and obviously the surface had run its course by that time with the number of games on it, so I'm hopeful there's a good surface.

"There's a local interest and it will be competitive. Having said that, it's only part of the preparation and we won't get too carried away.

"But you'd imagine there'd be a great number of fans there to see some of the players that will be introduced.

"It's another stepping stone along the way to August 9th in terms of moving on the preparation."

Having played five games in America and Scotland, and with trips to Belfast and Bradford to come, the Stanley game, and the August 2nd home clash with Inverness Caledonian Thistle represent the best chance for Burnley fans to see their new-look side.

And Coyle admits the schedule was arranged with a purpose: "Purposely we've only arranged one home game, and that's the last Saturday before the season starts.

"We could have had other home games, but we wanted to give our pitch as much time as possible.

"If we, as we have, got plans to play football then we need a good to do it. Latterly, towards the end of the season, it wasn't conducive to the way we wanted to play, so we've given the pitch as much time as we possibly can.

"And we would hope that by the end of (the season), with the amount of games that will be played on it during the course of the season, that it will stay the way we would like it."

Most Clarets supporters are yet to see record signing Martin Paterson in action, but two goals in three games in Scotland were a welcome return.

However, having been substituted at the request of the referee on Wednesday after disputing a throw-in decision, Coyle hopes it is a lesson learned: "I was pleased with Martin Paterson to a point, but I gave him a rollicking because at the end of the day, whether you think decisions are right or wrong, you certainly can't be involved in any sort of back-chat.

"He's a young kid and he wants to do his best. He'll learn his lesson, and it's an important lesson, so it's probably good that it's come in pre-season.

"I don't think, to be honest, that in a league match the referee would have sent him off - he'd have certainly given him a yellow card - so we just nipped that in the bud.

"He's a young player we've got high hopes for, that's why we invested as much as we did.

"It's just important he learns that lesson.

"He scored 15 goals in the Championship last season, he's 21 years of age, he's a Northern Ireland international, he's only going to get better,and we certainly feel that with working with him day in, day out."

And Coyle hopes to see his side step things up now after the 3-1 win at St Johnstone.

He added: "I was pleased with the first 15 minutes when I thought we looked very slick and controlled the open play and looked a real good team.

"I was disappointed, obviously, with the goal we lost and from then I thought we lost our way a little bit if the truth be told for 10 or 15 minutes.

"But we scored a very good second goal.

"The second half was probably similar to other pre-season games; when you're making that many changes there's not a lot of fluency.

"In terms of fitness, I was very pleased again with the levels at the end.

"But overall I know we can pass and move the ball a lot better.

"If we'd have carried on the opening 15 minutes for the 90 I'd have been thrilled."