....a weakened side for the pre-season visit of Cambridge United set-up an even more difficult task.

Both sides entered the pre-season fixture looking to carry on their 100% winning start to pre-season.

The Clarets boss was unable to select Shaun Batt, Mark Haines, Taylor Miles, Michael Spillane, Jonny Giles due to injuries, while Elliot Omozusi missed out through personal reasons.

Therefore, the City boss was forced to form a team with two trialists for the opening 65 minutes, while the changed side featured eight trialists and three Clarets players.

“I was really pleased with the first half,” Stringer told his club`s website. “I was a bit disappointed to go two goals down early on [in the second half] but obviously we changed it after 65 minutes and we had a team with eight trialists out there.

“When you look on the flip side of it, that’s very difficult. But, when we had mainly the first-team players out there in the first 65 minutes, I thought we looked OK.

“It’s pre-season and you have to go through this to try and get minutes. Unfortunately, at the minute, we’ve got six or seven players out.

“We’ve had to bring a trialist in for the first half at centre-half; Max Porter played there in the second half. Elliot Omozusi was unable to get here for personal reasons; Rob Swaine managed to get here in the end, but he had been up all night unwell.

“Micky Spillane and Mark Haines are both injured so when you look at all that, you have to put it into perspective. We knew it would be tough, obviously, you can’t play League Two sides with no defenders.

“I’m not worried about pre-season games. I’m more worried about getting people back because when you look at it, there are too many players – Shaun Batt, Jonny Giles Taylor Miles, Mark Haines, Michael Spillane – that are out there, and we need to get them back, so we can try and get some minutes into them”.