Alan Pace on the importance of Burnley's recruitment and the lessons they must learn

The Clarets will line up back in the top flight after finishing second in the Championship, finishing behind title winners Leeds United on goal difference only.

With all six newly-promoted sides facing instant relegation over the past two seasons, the size of the task facing Burnley next season is clear.

To give themselves the best chance possible, Pace knows how important it will be to bring in the right players during the upcoming summer transfer window.

"This summer is big,” he told the Burnley Express. “Planning is super, super important. It's going to be a lot of work.

"There’s no doubt about what we've seen over the last two years with six teams going up and six teams coming back down, so we've got our work cut out for us and this summer is going to be a big part of that. But we think we can do it.”

The Clarets will certainly be hoping to avoid the mistakes they made the last time they were promoted to the top flight under Vincent Kompany in 2023.

Burnley splashed over £100m on a number of young, up-and-coming players, while the core of the side that got them to the top flight in the first place was brushed aside.

It appears that won’t be the case this time around, with manager Scott Parker already confirming he wants to keep the “core” of his promotion-winning side together.

When asked about the lessons Burnley can take from their last promotion, Pace added: “Look, I think there are a few different lessons that we can learn without tipping our hand on some of the things that we'll do probably, you know, transfer-wise and some of the things that we've done as a team.

“I think, first and foremost, is that we actually come about this with the intent of keeping a core of this team solid for a long time to come. So I think we've built well and let's see how Scott managed to take them forward and add bits and pieces and turn it into the next version.

“I do not anticipate it will be as busy as last summer, especially, but I certainly hope that we're not as busy as we were a summer ago. But again, some of that's also driven by players and agents and other things that we don't get to control other teams, their desires. But I don't anticipate that we're going to be nearly as busy as what I think we have been in the past.”

The Clarets did well to overcome a chaotic window this time last summer, as a number of players expressed their desire to leave. In total, 17 players arrived while a further 21 departed.

“It was so challenging in different ways,” Burnley’s chairman said. “We knew what we wanted to do, it just didn't necessarily always come together the way that we would like to.

"I think that's the hard part for people looking from the outside with any transfer window. It's just not a clear path for anyone. It's, you know, there's ideas, there's intentions, there's desires, but it takes a lot of work.”