League title is the aim for Burns and his players

Musselburgh boss Liam Burns (right) is aiming for top spot with Musselburgh Athletic this season (pic: MAFC)

Burgh finished 11 points behind league champions Broxburn Athletic, who earned promotion to the Lowland League, and boss Burns admits that is the aim for him and his squad this season.

They sit top of the table on goal difference after last weekend’s opening day 4-0 win away to Edinburgh University and won’t give up top spot lightly.

“There are no two ways about it, that’s exactly what we want to try and do [win the league],” said Burns, ahead of hosting Luncarty tomorrow.

“The aim as other teams are also trying to do, is to win the league. Broxburn had a great start and set out their stall really early last season. After games pretty early in the season, we were always looking to see what the Broxburn score was. I hope this season that other teams will be looking to see what the Musselburgh score was.”

The Olivebank club have recruited well over the summer, bringing in goalkeeper Liam McCathie to compete with Daniel Laing for the starting jersey. Burns has poached Gabri Auriemma from fellow East Lothian outfit Haddington Athletic – where he was captain – while long term target, midfielder Michael Barfoot, who came close to signing in January, has arrived from Dunbar United. Andy Dempster has also bolstered the Burgh ranks during the close season, joining from Edinburgh College.

Burns’ problem now is trying to keep all his players happy and content with their volume of game time.

He continued: “We’ve managed to add to the signings we brought in from the middle to the end of last season in Aiden Walsh, Cal Donaldson, Nicky Reid and Jonny Court. If we had got those four guys in at the start of last season, I think we would’ve finished a lot closer to Broxburn. We’ve got a clean hit now in terms of these guys, with signing those guys in January last year they have had six months now where they know how we work.

“It's not the case we’ve signed eight players at once, which I think can be quite difficult at points, we’ve managed to almost drip feed the signings in. If we don’t achieve our goals this season, I won’t be blaming the recruitment that we’ve done, I think we’ve signed well.

“At this time last year we were having bad luck with injuries, and on Saturday there I had to leave three boys out and that’s not including two other players who were unavailable through injury and a stag do. Touch wood, hopefully it continues, we’ve been far better in terms of injuries – I don’t know whether it’s because we’ve done something differently or maybe it’s just been or luck.

“The problem we’ve got is leaving guys out of the squad, which at this level, is comfortably the hardest thing about my job having to pull them aside on a Thursday to let them know they won’t be in the squad when they are fully fit.”