BURNLEY and Aberdeen's future in the Europa League is finely balanced.
A Gary-Mackay Stevens strike for the Scottish side was cancelled out by Sam Vokes in the first leg of 'The Battle of Britain' at Pittodrie as the two sides eye up a place in the final qualifying round.
PA:Press Association 1 Sam Vokes's goal in the first-leg left the tie finely poised ahead of Thursday's match.
What time is kick-off?
THE match takes place on Thursday, August 2.
It will be played at Burnley's Turf Moor stadium and kick-off is at 7:45pm.
Should the tie end 1-1 then extra time and penalties will be played to decide the winner.
Which channel is it on and can I live stream it?
THE match will be shown live on BT Sport 1 and on BT Sport 4K UHD.
Live coverage begins at 19:15pm.
You can find it on Sky channel 413.
What is the team news?
Here's how the Clarets line-up against @AberdeenFC at Turf Moor tonight in the @EuropaLeague. pic.twitter.com/bLcNkEhnQb — Burnley FC (@BurnleyOfficial) August 2, 2018
This evening's Aberdeen team to play Burnley at Turf Moor- kick off 7.45pm!#COYR! 🔴 ⚪ 🔴 ⚪#StandFree pic.twitter.com/HRfIrrWNWA — Aberdeen FC (@AberdeenFC) August 2, 2018
Sean Dyche has done a remarkable job at Burnley (Picture: Getty Images)
The Premier League doesn’t start till next week but Burnley are in competitive action on Thursday night as they face Aberdeen in the second round of Europa League qualifying.
The Clarets had a sensational campaign last season, finishing seventh in the top flight which has taken them into a European campaign under Sean Dyche.
The first leg finished 1-1 at Pittodrie after Sam Vokes cancelled out a Gary Mackay-Steven opener.
The winners of this tie will go on to face CFR Cluj in the third qualifying stage before a play-off round to reach the group stage.
Sam Vokes scored Burnley’s goal in the first leg (Picture: Getty Images)
When is Burnley vs Aberdeen?
The match is on Thursday, 2 August with kick-off at 7.45pm.
Gary Mackay-Steven opened the scoring for Aberdeen (Picture: Getty Images)
Is Burnley vs Aberdeen on TV and is there a live stream?
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The game is being shown live on BT Sport 1 with coverage starting at 7.15pm.
BT Sport customers can stream the match through BT Sport Player.
Derek McInnes would love to take the Premier League scalp (Picture: Getty Images)
What are the odds? (Courtesy of Betfair)
8/15 Burnley
14/5 Draw
11/2 Aberdeen
Are tickets still available?
Yes, tickets are still on sale on the Burnley website, here.
Burnley are struggling with a goalkeeping issue with Nick Pope and Tom Heaton injured and Anders Lindegaard not fully fit.
They have a fourth-choice keeper, Adam Legzdins, but he is not registered in the Europa League squad and they are searching for special dispensation to allow him to be picked.
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Burnley will re-live their halcyon days of trips to continent, but only after emerging bloodied and brusied from a European tie made in Britain.
Jack Cork’s header and Ashley Barnes’s penalty ultimately edged Sean Dyche’s side past a game and unrelenting Aberdeen. Burnley will play Istanbul Basaksehir in the next round of Europa League qualifiers and make their first sojourn abroad in 51 years.
Yet when 18-year-old Lewis Ferguson scored the first and what will likely be the finest goal of his young career – a stunning, first-half bicycle kick to cancel out Chris Wood’s opener – that did not seem so certain.
On another night, it could easily have been Aberdeen and their supporters packing their passports and celebrating their escape from an evenly-matched, fiercely-contested and often thrilling tie. It was not to be.
Aberdeen’s travelling support congregated on the cricket pitch that sits adjacent to Turf Moor before kick-off, swilling beer and singing boisterously, but once safely inside the ground they initially found little to cheer about. McInnes’ side did not start with the same intensity they showed seven days earlier at Pittodrie, and the seven-minute mark had not even passed before Burnley moved ahead on aggregate.
An Aberdeen throw-in inside their own half should not have allowed Burnley in, but Graeme Shinnie found himself easily dispossessed by Ashley Westwood, who went in search of Wood with a ball over the top. Wood’s first touch off the outside of his thigh bought him time to turn, round a marooned Joe Lewis and fire high into the roof of the net, past the two defenders on the goal-line.
Burnley briefly demonstrated to their visitors why Turf Moor is regarded as among the most testing of away trips south of the border, controlling the ebb and flow of play, snuffing out all openings. The hosts were comfortable and it would take something special for Aberdeen to edge themselves back into this tie. Ferguson found it.
His equaliser was spectacular but a soft one to concede. Gary Mackay-Steven’s cross to far post would usually be meat and drink for a side organised by Sean Dyche, but Wood headed back across the penalty area rather than out and away. The ball was dropping behind Ferguson, but the teenager’s amateur acrobatics allowed him to convert past Anders Lindegaard.
For a brief moment, there was quiet, as though Turf Moor could not quite comprehend what it had just witnessed, but the time Ferguson had lifted himself up off the turf though, the away end was wild.
Dyche, meanwhile, has rarely looked as incandescent after seeing his side concede, and he was left only more unimpressed by how Burnley ended the half. As at Pittodrie, the wing play of Mackay-Steven and Niall McGinn was exploiting a weakness, stretching a defence that prefers to play narrow.
Wood, scorer of Burnley’s goal turned provider for Aberdeen’s, was removed at the break. Two minutes from the re-start, Johann Berg Gudmundsson almost found the response Dyche had presumably demanded but Lewis’s fingertips turned the Icelander’s strike around the near post.
Lewis, somewhat culpable for the ease of Wood’s opener, did more than enough to atone after the break. Wood’s replacement Ashley Barnes was denied superbly by the Aberdeen goalkeeper, who dived left but turned a swerving shot over with his trailing right arm.
Sam Vokes, scorer of Burnley’s late equaliser at Pittodrie, believed he had come up with the goods again when connecting with a cross from wide, but the ball cannoned off the crossbar and was scrambled clear. Replays showed Lewis, once again, had diverted the ball with a faint but crucial touch.
Lewis, however, could do little about the decisive goal when it came. Aberdeen had dealt with crosses like Charlie Taylor’s all night but, in the 101st minute, Cork slipped through the lines of their defence to rise and flick the ball on into the far corner.
McInnes’ men, in truth, had started to look tired and somewhat over-ran. Their disappointment was compounded and their fate sealed in the second half of extra-time when Scott McKenna was judged to have handled in the box. Barnes converted the spot-kick and secured safe passage to Istanbul.
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