Burnley boss Sean Dyche is adamant the Clarets will not be forced to part with players on the cheap due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Turf Moor boss has expressed his frustration as the club’s handling of its out-of-contract players with Jeff Hendrick and Phil Bardsley among those whose participation in the final nine games of the season is not clear. Burnley posted a net profit for a third successive season in their accounts for the financial year to June 2019 with a surplus of £4.3million.
Sean Dyche said “The club’s in an incredibly strong position financially, that hasn’t changed because of Covid, so I don’t think that will affect that. If anyone does want to knock on our door and ask for our players, I don’t think it will affect the price radically, I still think we know the true worth of our players. It would be difficult for us as a club to be more conservative, If you’re talking about the greater view of football, we’ll see. We’ve already seen a couple of moves that look like they’re going to happen for massive amounts of money, the £50m mark, and that still seems like a hell of a lot of money in my world at Burnley. I think it depends on the ownership of clubs, how they view the financial running of the club, so I don’t know. Some will see it as an opportunity, clubs who are very wealthy, they may see players who they thought they were going to have to pay whatever for come down, but the whole market might get questioned, and therefore come down. I think it will be each to their own, and see how the market comes back to life. The club has had a way of working for a long time, I was saying 18 months ago that we have got to stretch the finance without breaking the structure of the club. We’re in a very strong position financially – even with all this going on. The risk is if you don’t put enough in, you could run into trouble. If you put too much in then you can still get in trouble. Finding the balance is tricky.”
