The season is now well up and running and whilst obviously eyes were on the Premier League I wonder how many supporters noticed that other clubs were actually playing in the FA Cup.

Being in the top flight of course means you don’t have to start your FA Cup journey until January when the third round proper is on with everybody’s target at that stage getting Wembley.

Last week scores of clubs around the country were hoping to win. Their target would probably be the first round proper when the Football League clubs come in. Their dream is to have a League club at their ground.

Despite that, most attention was understandably on the Premier League and there were not too many surprises.

Man City carried on where they left off, but unfortunately for them have since had bad news with the injury Kevin De Bruyne has suffered. I think most people would say he is their most outstanding player and it will be interesting to see how much they miss him.

The game at St Mary’s probably proved my point as to why I always like to play away from home first.

I am sure Mark Hughes would have been very happy had the game been at Burnley and the team had come away with a 0-0 draw.

Now, even though the performance in the second half could have got him three points, he is faced with a trip to Everton.

Credit to Mark for bringing on two players in the second half as substitutes - Danny Ings and Moi Elyounoussi - who added more quality and excitement to the game.

I suppose some people might say ‘why didn’t he start with them?’ The problem is that players such as those haven’t been at the club very long and they are probably still getting to know their colleagues off the field.

Even if you have played one or two pre-season games the real stuff only started last week.

To me the first half showed that Burnley were a team who had played together more often and Sean Dyche hadn’t signed too many players and thrown them in.

In addition, they had had three competitive games already in Europe.

The interest now of course will be whether Mark will start the two players he brought on who undoubtedly made a difference.

On the one hand it’s good for the manager to have a choice but the problem is it often takes a few games to get the right balance and the right group.

Every manager wants to get points on the board as soon as possible and when you look at the fixture list there is rarely what you would call an easy game coming up.

That, of course, adds to the interest and excitement and helps make the Premier League probably the best in the world.

  • Whilst talking about world class clubs and players I was interested to read recently about football at the other end of the pyramid because it involved Gateshead, my first club as a player and a coach.

They are now in the National League and the news came out that the club had been sold to a Russian businessman for £1.

At first I thought ‘how generous of him’ as I remember a man and wife who were local had bought the club three years ago.

Apparently, Gateshead have the lowest budget in that league at £400,000 per season, but instead of the husband and wife coming away as we often see in the Premier League with a bagful of money £1 won’t go far.

It turns out over the three-year period they had actually put £3m into the club.

Let’s see how the gentleman from Russia does because it is a very competitive league and I am always interested to count up the number of clubs at that level who at one time used to be in the League.

We will wait and see.