HOW ironic that Leeds United are hoping to build a casino on land adjoining Elland Road.

For such a building would instantly become a symbol for a club that gambled everything - and lost.

Just three short years ago, Leeds were Premiership high-rollers, upping the stakes as they sought European glory under then manager David O'Leary.

But behind the facade, the foundations were already groaning under the sheer weight of loans secured to supplement a top-heavy wage bill.

As everyone knows, former chairman Peter Ridsdale put the whole house on black ... and ended up with a shell of a club deep in the red.

Relegation from the Premiership last season was the final ignominy for the 'old' Leeds United, who found themselves a staggering £80m in debt and forced to off-load the last of the big wage earners to live without the annual £20m cash injection top flight football brings.

Three managers on, Kevin Blackwell played his own game of poker last summer, wheeling and dealing quicker than a Las Vegas croupier as players were shipped in and out at breakneck speed.

Meanwhile, across the Pennines, Steve Cotterill was dealing with the hand he had been dealt at Turf Moor, inheriting just eight full-time professionals and, in contrast to Blackwell, looking for aces rather than adding to an already full hand.

And as the two men prepare to come face-to-face at Elland Road tonight, penny-pinching Cotterill admits to a pang of envy at the stash of cash mysteriously made available to his opposite number.

"Leeds have managed to bring in players of quality and they are still a big club," said the Clarets chief.

"Eventually they will find their way back to the Premiership and that is a cast-iron fact. Clubs who get 27-30,000 fans are a Premiership club, without a shadow of a doubt.

"That support can double, maybe even treble your wage bill and give you a lot more scope, so I envy that. I really do."

The list of Elland Road departures since their fall from grace reads like a who's who of Premiership stars.

Record £18m signing Rio Ferdinand, Harry Kewell, Robbie Keane, Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate were all early casualties of Ridsdale chasing the dream.

Others soon followed to further slash a crippling wage bill, most notably Robbie Fowler, Alan Smith, Mark Viduka, Paul Robinson and James Milner.

Today, Leeds remain some £30m in debt after wage deferrals, threats of administration, protracted takeover deals and even the mooted sale of their flagship training facility at Thorp Arch, near Wetherby.

Yet they undoubtedly remain a huge club - and Cotterill knows tonight represents a terrific challenge for the bones of a Burnley squad.

He added: "If you can't get motivated playing at Leeds, then you can't get motivated for anything. It's a great stadium and they are a massive club.

"Losing 2-0 to Wigan at the weekend probably hasn't made things any easier, but it will be great to have 3,500 fans there and the one thing about our fans is that they make themselves heard.

"They are certainly going to have to do that tomorrow because there will be 25,000 shouting against them.

"It's going to be tough all right, but we will go there and do our best for them. Our preparations have not been easy because of the injury situation.

"We could really do with a free week and the problem with this nightmare scenario is that it's come on the back of a bad result.

"You always want to put that right straight away and you just hope you have the bodies to do it.

"But we've got enough character to get results when we are right up against it. We've done that in the past and we can do it again."