Clarets may have to break the bank in the window

Clarets boss Sean Dyche thinks Burnley may have to smash the ceiling to add to the squad ahead of the close of the transfer window.
Burnley Manager Sean Dyche gives instructions on the touchline during the UEFA Europa League second qualifying round, first leg match at Pittodrie Stadium, Aberdeen. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday July 26, 2018. See PA story SOCCER Aberdeen. Photo credit should read: Ian Rutherford/PA WireBurnley Manager Sean Dyche gives instructions on the touchline during the UEFA Europa League second qualifying round, first leg match at Pittodrie Stadium, Aberdeen. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday July 26, 2018. See PA story SOCCER Aberdeen. Photo credit should read: Ian Rutherford/PA Wire
Burnley Manager Sean Dyche gives instructions on the touchline during the UEFA Europa League second qualifying round, first leg match at Pittodrie Stadium, Aberdeen. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday July 26, 2018. See PA story SOCCER Aberdeen. Photo credit should read: Ian Rutherford/PA Wire

The club are yet to make a summer signing, with the deadline at 5 p.m. a week on Thursday.

And while Dyche accepts the market seems to get harder season on season, with transfer fees inflating beyond belief, he feels if Burnley may have to follow suit and get on the merry-go-round.

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Burnley, Spurs and Crystal Palace are the only Premier League clubs yet to bring a player in, with Brighton (£56.4m) the fifth-biggest spenders to date.

Championship winners Wolves have spent £51.8m, Southampton £54.5m, Huddersfield £42.9m, newly-promoted Fulham £35m and Cardiff City £28.5m.

Dyche, meanwhile, has seen a combined £25m for West Brom pair Jay Rodriguez and Craig Dawson rejected, while Fulham look to be stealing a march on Swansea City centre back Alfie Mawson.

The club transfer record stands at the £15m for Chris Wood last summer, and while Burnley have achieved remarkable success with a prudent approach, Dyche said: “There’s some money going around – if you look at what Brighton have spent, a lot, Cardiff have spent a lot, Fulham seemingly haven’t stopped spending, Huddersfield have spent a lot.

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“They are pushing their own markets and their own paramaters financially, and we might have to do the same.

“It’s not the rights and wrongs of the market anymore, 10 years ago we’d all sit there and go ‘I’m surprised at that one, that seems a lot’.

“Now it doesn’t matter, people just pay whatever that deal takes.

“The problem is the players who move for that one where we all go ‘eh? How did he go for that much?’

“They are the ones that hurt the market.

“We’re just going to have to see.”

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And it doesn’t help that a gentleman’s agreement appears to be a thing of the past: “It’s a tough market, there’s no two ways about it.

“It definitely gets more difficult every year, not just the numbers, everyone wants as many options as possible.

“I’ve only been doing it seven years, at at the beginning, when the agent said ‘okay’, that was it. Now that doesn’t exist. Now it’s ‘yeah, we want to do it’, and telling someone else they want to do it, until it pushes and pushes it.

“And the clubs are the same.

“That’s what’s changed, it’s just an open market to push boundaries and limits, rather than if you do a deal, it’s a done deal.

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“I could tell you there is (something happening), and then they go away, and you just go ‘well how did that happen?’

“That’s happened on a few occasions to us, so it’s not a negative thing, there’s just no news waiting this second.

“Whether there will be a flurry late on, in the market I mean, not just for us, remains to be seen.

“It’s mainly really big stuff that’s been going around, and at some point, the wheels do start turning.

“We’re waiting on a few situations.”