"These are situations we've brought on ourselves" - Burnley boss Sean Dyche on contract concerns

And he would understand if anyone decided not to play on as clubs look to complete the Premier League season.

The Clarets restart at Manchester City on Monday night, with Dyche not yet clear on whether he will be able to call upon Jeff Hendrick, Aaron Lennon, Joe Hart, Phil Bardsley or Adam Legzdins, whose deals expire at the end of June.

Clubs have until Tuesday to extend players' deals for the remainder of the delayed campaign, but some players around the Premier League and Championship have already come to the decision not to play on, and risk scuppering any potential move.

Asked whether any of the players have indicated they would like to play on, Dyche said: "They’ve communicated that they’d like to know what the future is beyond one month.

"I can’t give them any assurances on that because I’ve not been given that guidance myself - that comes from the chairman and the board.

"There is nothing I can tell them other than the situation as it stands, and I’m waiting on more news of that."

Dyche is disappointed the club haven't acted earlier on his advice regards the situations of the players out of contract: "The club has had a way of working for a long time.

"I was saying 18 months ago that we have got to stretch the finance without breaking the structure of the club.

"We’re in a very strong position financially – even with all this going on.

"The risk is if you don’t put enough in, you could run into trouble.

"If you put too much in then you can still get in trouble.

"Finding the balance is tricky.

"These situations didn’t need to occur but they have occurred.

"That is something the chairman and the board must learn from.

"The Covid crisis has not been helpful for sure but it’s not been the cover story because I’ve been talking about this for 18 months.

"I was projecting what might happen in that period of time and Covid has just added to the complexity to it."

Add injuries to Ashley Barnes, Chris Wood and Johann Berg Gudmundsson, and Dyche's squad could be seriously depleted, which would be a blow, with Burnley slap-bang in the shake-up for a return to European competition: "We've been told many times down the years things are impossible for us and we can't do this and that, so I'm not too worried about the outside noise.

"But there are some facts to it, it would be helpful to have the contract situation sorted out, to not have the injuries we've got, but these are the realities.

"These are strange times for everyone, but these are situations we've brought on ourselves by not taking care of our business earlier, and the Covid thing has just enhanced some of the challenges which are quite obvious to us, and other clubs as well.

"We'll work our way through it best we can, keep the mentality strong and try to deliver performances.

"Is the cup half empty or half full? That's for the powers that be to decide.

"At the minute, not a lot is getting done that I wanted done, so I've got to sit tight and wait for that to get done, and then we can add in the next level of what we want to do.

"Until then, I've just got to work with the players the best I can and also respect their rights.

"If the players out of contract decide it's not for them, I'd have to respect that, it's how it goes."

Dyche added: "It's their own individual view of what it is now, that's one of the peculiar situations this has brought around.

"Good in the sense there was common sense to add on the period contractually and allow that to happen, that's a very wise move.

"But, equally, players out of contract who have a situation where there might be a club interested, and a future more guaranteed than what we can offer them, I've got to respect that.

"We've got to look at ourselves, we've had plenty of opportunity to make sure situations were sorted out earlier than this, the chairman and the board decided not to do that, so therefore the complexity came when Covid hit, and this has made it more tricky, obviously, but that's the way it goes."