SEAN Dyche was pleased with the fitness of his players after they came through the first pre-season friendly of the summer with a 3-1 win over Stade Nyonnais.

Andre Gray, Ashley Barnes and Michael Keane scored in the first half for the Clarets, before Dyche made 10 outfield changes at half-time, with young goalkeeper Connor Mitchell coming on in the second half for Paul Robinson.

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The friendly came at the end of a training camp in Evian-les-Bains, on the other side of Lake Geneva.

And although the players have stepped up the work this week with several double sessions, Dyche was pleased to see them come through a competitive friendly fixture against their Swiss third division opponents.

“You can play training games but it’s not the same thing,” the Clarets chief said. “Even with these games, they’re low key but there’s a competitive edge, as you saw with Nyon. They worked hard, they were fit, and that’s good for our players.

“It’s a good early marker for the players to see where they’re at and they looked good physically, and we’ll get the GPS stats as well.”

While Burnley were easy winners at the Stade de Colovray, next to UEFA’s headquarters, Dyche admitted he was more interested in the fitness than the result against a team who had played Sporting Lisbon in a friendly 24 hours previously.

“The result is irrelevant. At this stage really it’s all about the fitness of the players and the fact they’ve come through unscathed, which is good,” he said.

“We want to build up their fitness, obviously it starts on the training pitch, but they need games as well, so it was good to come through with no injuries.”

Burnley returned home on Saturday and play their first domestic pre-season friendly tomorrow night at Morecambe as they take another step towards full fitness.

“It’s only a small step (here), there’s plenty of bigger steps to come, but the mixture of training and game time is the essential thing to get players fully fit and ready for the season,” said Dyche. “We do that well we think.”

Burnley were returning to Evian, and the training facilities used by Germany during Euro 2016, for the second summer in a row, but the weather was markedly different this time around.

While 12 months ago the players baked in temperatures in the mid-30s, this time it was much cooler, with heavy rain on several days.

Despite that Dyche was pleased with the camp.

“The weather was radically different to last year, it was about 35 degrees when we here then. This year it’s been about 16,” he said. “But it’s been good, the facilities have been great and the players have responded well to it.

“We’re missing a few of the lads who were at the Euros, they need a bit more rest and recuperation time, but it’s good to get the players out here.

“We’ve got a close group anyway so it’s not so much of a case of bonding, they’re already bonded, but it’s a reminder to each other to bring that focus to training, that professionalism it takes to tune back in after the summer.”