Burnley boss Vincent Kompany accepts he may lose key players but 'the phone book is big enough to have some interesting options'

Kompany is set for a busy few weeks with the return to pre-season testing and training from Monday, while he will need to bolster his squad after the departure of a number of senior players at the end of their contracts, including captain Ben Mee and James Tarkowski.

And there could yet be further departures with speculation linking Nick Pope, Dwight McNeil, Nathan Collins and Maxwel Cornet with Premier League returns, while Wout Weghorst is expected to leave the club on loan.

Kompany is excited about the prospect of putting together his squad, although he accepts he will probably turn to younger players rather than experienced professionals due to the budget available: "At this moment in time, it's a busy period, as much as an exciting period, with having come down to the Championship there are still possibilities of players leaving because we have to let them go, which is part of getting relegated, but at the same time, there's opportunities of bringing new players into the group who could help us maybe getting closer to this idea we have about how we want to go with this club.

"There's a lot of uncertainty, but it's also an exciting time because there's a lot of opportunity and we're going for the second, which is the opportunities we see in this moment.”

He has been linked with a loan move for centre back Taylor Harwood-Bellis from former club Manchester City, and he added: "You borrow as a last resort if you don't have the funds available to bring in the quality that you want, and if there's a position where you have an immediate need to bring in a player to help you so, borrowing is something you do in the last resort.

"I think our main idea is to see if we can find players who are willing to stay longer, to develop them as well, because the budgets we're in will not allow us to probably bring in the seasoned guys, but we want to bring in players who are able to commit for a longer period to the club and maybe create and add value to the club when other teams come and take them from us.

"It's something that I'm quite familiar with, because when I was back in Belgium, the only type of deals we used to have to make were kind of undervalued young players with a big future ahead and creating value through them, and seeing them develop into players who helped us become a better team.

"So nothing different from what I've done for the last three years, and the phone book is big enough to have some interesting options.”