It is a vital summer coming up at Burnley and manager Sean Dyche worries his club are being left behind in the transfer market.
The Clarets will always operate at the other end of the scale in financial terms to the Premier League heavyweights but maintenance work is required.
Three players have already left this month at the end of their contracts, most notably midfielder Jeff Hendrick, leaving the squad thin on numbers, while seven more are out of contract this time next summer.
Dyche has been publicly unhappy with his chairman Mike Garlick over what he perceives to be an overly cautious approach. He believes the days of doing things on the cheap are gone and so proper, structured investment is the only way to go.
“If pre-planning and planning is not put in place, eventually you come to a moment which we’ve had recently where things come on top of you,” he said.
“The days of us nicking players like Nick Pope for £1.5 million, Johan Gudmundsson for £2.2m, James Tarkowski for £4m, they are gone.
“We’re not sure how Covid-19 is going to affect the market, but if you take that away, I’ve said for a long time that we need to get in front of the curve.
“But to do that costs a lot of money. For two and a half years I’ve been talking about stretching it, not breaking it.
“Can we stretch it? Yes, I think we can. Does it need stretching? Yes, it does.
“You can’t forever just work on a net spend of £9m a year. It is not impossible but it’s improbable that is going to work over a long period.”
Burnley travel to Crystal Palace on Monday evening, safely in 11th in the table and all but guaranteed a fifth straight season in the top flight.
Bigger clubs like West Ham or Aston Villa would happily swap places with them, as the Lancashire outfit continue to punch above their weight.
Dyche adds: “I’ve never been searching for any pats on the back. It’s nice when you get them, but you get as many questions as pats on the back.”
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3eDeC3s
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