Clarets to seal double deal?

The Clarets have seen three offers, the most recent in excess of £2m, rebuffed for West Brom centre back Craig Dawson, while Nottingham Forest boss Stuart Pearce revealed on Tuesday when asked of Burnley’s interest in midfielder Henri Lansbury: “There’s been interest in Henri, but nothing anywhere near our valuation. We all turned it down.”

There are suggestions that Pearce has reluctantly agreed to the sale, while Burnley are priming a fourth bid for Dawson.

Sean Dyche’s side play their last pre-season game at home to Verona tomorrow, with the first Premier League game against Chelsea at Turf Moor on Monday, August 18th.

With the transfer window closing on September 1st, Dyche has certain deadlines to bring players in by, but he admitted: “There are a couple of situations we have been active with for a long time and they just take time, it’s as simple as that. It’s documented that unless you are going to throw massive money at things you have to keep working at the deal and getting to a place where everyone is happy.”

Chief executive Lee Hoos added: “We’re still working hard to get a couple more over the line. It looks more manageable now even though time is ticking.

“Earlier in the summer we wanted to bring in eight or nine players but then we were suddenly looking at only three or four.

“It’s just about getting those final few over the line. We need to do that and we’re working hard on it.”

Asked whether he wanted players in before tomorrow’s game, Dyche said: “It is what it is. There is the longer deadline, the real one of when the window shuts, we are working hard. There are guidelines at the club, there are certain financial parameters and the board want it done in a certain fashion and that’s important.

“There are a lot of changes we are trying to make here and we have to be pragmatic with it and it just makes the challenge what it is.

“But we certainly need more than we have got because we want that demand from the squad.

“It’s not about necessarily replacing, it’s about demand, its about challenge and it’s about keeping the group hungry and knowing that they haven’t got a guaranteed shirt.

“The players were fantastically well motivated last year, some knowing they more or less had a guaranteed shirt, but we want to change that dynamic, we want to make sure that they are aware that it’s a challenge from everywhere now.”

Dyche also has two domestic loans available to him, but he underlined: “There is only so much resource to get so many things to happen. We are not a bottomless pit.

“There is a myth where everyone thinks you get a cheque the next day and you go and bank it and you get £120m straight away. Doesn’t quite work like that.

“The big powers get it done as, when you look around the market, they basically pay what is required to get it to happen. We have to keep inching away.

“There has to be a realism – the value we put on the player and not just the value that someone wants from the player and some of the valuations have been interesting, shall we say. I know there are two that I rang about a year ago, and I said I am sure they weren’t triple what they were a year ago, so you can imagine the world of getting promoted to the Premier League, it’s an interesting one.”