Lancashire

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Burnley right-back Kyle Walker says he intends to retire from football on his own terms - but not for a while yet.

The 35-year-old announced his retirement from international football in March, having earned 96 senior England caps.

With 438 Premier League appearances, Walker is considering how he will bow out from playing altogether.

"I don't know if I'll continue playing for a few more years," he said on The Overlap podcast.

"I feel once that time in my head comes where I'm done, I'd have to be true to myself. Leave the game before the game leaves you.

"I'm 36 in May, but I'm feeling good. It takes longer to recover, I can tell you that. One million per cent.

"And now I'm probably doing a lot more defending than I've ever done in my career, but I feel good. It's more for me upstairs and you fight your little battles in your head if you can keep doing it.

"I don't want to tarnish what I've done but I also have a level of respect for myself that I'll do it on my terms.

"I've not done anything else in my whole entire life except football, so it's a big part of me and to let it go, it's hard. But sometimes you have to let it go when you're not good enough anymore."

Walker won six Premier League titles and a Champions League at Manchester City before joining Burnley in 2025.

As he plots out the rest of his career, he dreams of returning to his hometown club.

"I'd like to keep playing for another few years," Walker said.

"It's always been a dream to play for Sheffield United again. To start there at six years old and then leaving at 19 - I spent so many incredible years there.

"I hope to play for them again. I don't know when that will be. I don't know if they will want me."

Natalie Bromley
Fan writer

Image source, Getty Images

Another game that sums up this campaign for Burnley: lacking in pace, lacking in excitement, lacking in any goals, lacking in anything that demonstrates that either Scott Parker or his team have anything close to what it takes to survive in the Premier League.

Three points were there for the taking. They were not taken. A pathetically weak whimper down to the Championship.

We have shown such a painful lack of any drive or desire this season. Every now and again - the Brentford performance being the most recent example - the players show some fight in a "battling performance" and we are presented with the PR spin claiming that these players do have desire and that you can't say that this team isn't leaving everything on the pitch.

I'm sorry, but one swallow does not make a summer, and Parker simply doesn't have what it takes to manage in this league - as painful as that feels to face, because we all wanted him to succeed and have a long and successful career in East Lancashire.

Put simply, I can't wait for this miserable season to be over.

In better news, an update for those who read last week's piece: Burnley Women did indeed beat Wolves at Turf Moor. They take a critical lead at the top of the table, with promotion to WSL2 looking very likely. Three games to go…

Find more from Natalie Bromley at No Nay Never podcast, external

Andy Bayes
Sports editor, BBC Radio Lancashire

Image source, Shutterstock

In the space of 12 league matches, Preston North End have dropped 13 places in the Championship.

It's about as dramatic a fall from grace as you're likely to see.

They were three points off the automatic promotion places on 4 January with a 19-point buffer between themselves and the relegation spots.

The numbers are alarmingly different 69 days later.

They are now 21 points adrift of second-placed Middlesbrough, 11 off the play-offs and 10 from the bottom three.

The 2-0 win at Bristol City 12 games ago felt like a big moment. A vocal away support singing their heroes home, with a manager growing in popularity game by game.

Speaking to the Lancashire Post, external in his after-match interview at Norwich on Saturday, Paul Heckingbottom was clear in his opinion that staying in the Championship wasn't a foregone conclusion.

He pinpointed a dramatic drop-off last season, where North End won only once in the league after the victory at Norwich on 11 February, as a case in point.

The final day survival last season should have been a wake-up call, and for a while it looked like it had been.

Granted, the squad has undergone significant change, but since they won at Norwich 13 months ago, they've played 53 league matches, and they haven't won 40 of them. Draws have been an Achilles heel in both seasons, but in the last four games a draw has looked far from likely.

The stats show that they had 15 attempts at the Norwich goal on Saturday, but I can't honestly remember describing a full-stretch save from Canaries keeper Vladan Kovacevic to keep them at bay.

Andrew Hughes will be disappointed with a header that went well wide, and Michael Smith failed to make contact with the ball four yards out to reduce the arrears to 2-1.

Norwich's quadruple change on the hour looked like they firmly believed that the points were already safely in the bag after being far from brilliant themselves.

Not for the first time this season, a 34-year-old central midfielder was the star of this Championship show. Kenny McLean is another second-tier player ageing like a fine wine. He had time and space on the pitch when others didn't. His free kick to make it 2-0 was a touch of class, although had the North End wall jumped, it could have made a difference.

Clearly it's a time of frustration. Was enough done to strengthen a promotion push in January? Is the squad better off for January? The manager said it would be criminal if the squad didn't come out of the winter window better off.

This is season 11 back in the second tier for North End. On one hand, that's an achievement that a lot of clubs and fans of others could only dream of. On the other hand, some fans are looking at it feeling that under its current guise, they've reached their ceiling.

The owners of the club, the Hemmings family, have made no secret of the fact that they'd like to hand over the keys sooner rather than later. They have to plug a sizeable hole on the balance sheet every year, and it's not something they see going on forever.

Whatever league position they finish on 2 May, it's undoubtedly going to be another busy summer at Deepdale. The likes of Daniel Jebbison, Lewis Dobbin and Alfie Devine will return to their Premier League parent clubs with another four senior players out of contract.

It's massively important that they go into the summer break having arrested this horrendous run which has terminally damaged their season.

We asked for your thoughts after Saturday's Premier League game between Burnley v Bournemouth.

Here are some of your comments:

Burnley fans

Steve: Some Steller performances, dug in and showed attacking form. Dominated quite a big chunk of the game with Bournemouth having to throw bodies in the way. Just couldn't get the final touch in.

Alan: Could somebody please tell me where Scott Parker gets his rose tinted spectacles. I appreciate it is his role to talk up his team and motivate them in any way possible, but Burnley are worse now than at the start of the season. Performances are generally abject with the occasional decent passages of play, but these are few and far between.

James: Watching Burnley is only slightly less painful than toothache. It hurts, but you keep thinking it can't get worse, whilst knowing deep down it will. Relegation will bring some relief in that the team might play football again for a while, but always with the nagging doubt that the toothache will return. Please for the fans, make changes now and prove there is a long term solution to this pain. Saturday, yet another poor game where two poor sides huffed and puffed, to the detriment of money paying supporters. We are relegated, please in the remaining games entertain us and give us hope.

Graham: A match of two halves... Sadly, both the same! Neither team dominated and, though Burnley played better than recently, it wasn't enough to beat an average Bournemouth team. Burnley can survive but, strangely, need to actually score some goals!

Bournemouth fans

Martin: We were poor today. I think we're missing Semenyo's goals. Kroupi is playing out of position and good chances were spurned by Unal and Brooks. Hill was excellent once again, and it's 10 games unbeaten and another clean sheet.

Dave: Another draw! We have to start putting away the chances we create. Evanilson and Unal are just not goalscorers. Must make some changes in the summer.

Guy: I was born in Winton in 1942. In those days our team at Dean Court used to have a coach. Why not get one now who knows how to motivate the team to score goals?

Terry: Fed up now. I love my team but plus 20 shots, 2 on target, according to stats. Just think if we'd won five of our14 draws -10 more points, further up table. Bring on the Red Devils - spend a week shooting on target! Up the Cherries.

Pundits Joe Hart and Ashley Williams join host Kelly Cates to bring you the action and talking points from Saturday's Premier League fixtures.

Watch on BBC iPlayer here

And listen back to full match commentaries on BBC Sounds:

• Sunderland 0-1 Brighton

• Burnley 0-0 Bournemouth

• Chelsea 0-1 Newcastle

• Arsenal 2-0 Everton