Clubs interested in Burnley’s prize assets will have to have a ‘war chest’ insists boss Sean Dyche

Dwight McNeil continues to gain admirers as a 20-year-old ever-present in the Premier League this season, while Charlie Taylor and James Tarkowski have both been linked with Leicester City.

Dyche accepts that every player has his price, and, indeed, that McNeil will “outgrow” the club, saying earlier this season: “I think he can go beyond us and can go on to pastures new at a higher level of club."

And he is philosophical about what the future brings: “It’s part of the reality of the club. We’re not giants in the Premier League. This will happen. We can’t pay the wages that other clubs pay and some of the numbers that these players get are astronomical. They’re miles above what we can pay.

“When that moment comes, I have to factor that in a little bit as well and say ‘look, this is a chance for them to go and get whatever that may be and we can’t compete with that’. There is a little bit of that.

“The business comes first, of course, but there’s also a bit of moral fibre there and we can’t stop a player from having that opportunity.

“But I can assure you it will only happen if the numbers are correct. The numbers now in our world are high and we’re in a position to say no, we don’t need to sell anyone.

“So if anyone wants to come for any of our players, they had better have a war chest.”

A number of players under Dyche have effectively reached a stage where a move to a bigger club was inevitable, but in previous years, the club were often in a position where they needed to sell.

Not any more: “The thing is with what we are as a club, we’ve worked hard to be in the Premier League and we will continue to do so.

“But there’s a reality when players come in, particularly when we’ve developed them as lower-league players for less money or the likes of Dwight McNeil.

“At some point those players, not all of them, but some of them get to a point where the club will sell them.

“Just by the natural economics they’re going to go ‘well, OK, what did we bring that player in for and what’s the offer?’.

“The difference is that offer is now stretched because we don’t actually need the money.

“In the past, we always had to do certain things. Now we don’t have to do them because we’re in a very strong financial position.

“That’s changed, that side of it has changed, but the principle of it is still there. Players who do so, so well eventually - we’re not trying to sell them - but if someone comes in and offers enough where eventually the chairman says ‘that’s enough’. That’s it, they’ve got to go.”

And Burnley have stood firm in recent times, with Leicester believed to have been rebuffed for Tarkowski in the summer.

Dyche said: “We’ve had situations where they’ve offered a fair bit and we’ve said no. That’s the difference, we can now say no.

“Keano (Michael Keane) went (to Everton) and it was a case of ‘we can’t refuse that money’.

“Now we can. That’s the difference, although the basic principle is still there.

“If a player does so, so well and enough big interest comes from the top of the market, the chances are at some point that situation breaks and that player goes.”