The Flood Gates Open

Operation Director, Brendan Flood has admitted that finances are still tight at the club after announcing a loss of over £4m in December with similar losses predicted for 2008.

However although that might be the Flood Barrier (sorry!) to club success, he also gave some positive encouraging news on the transfer front supporting gaffer Owen Coyle in his efforts to bring the right quality of players at the right price to the club.

'Owen has people in his sights and is going about it in the right way.

'We've got to keep our fingers crossed we can persuade the people to come to Burnley.

'He has a very clear list of people he wants, and we have to hope we can grind them down.

There is a common thought circulating amongst Clarets fans that we cant compete with our rivals in the Championship in terms of player salaries but this seems to have been dismissed by Flood who then continued by saying:

'But we're competitive on money and salaries, although it's getting harder and harder to get the right quality players at a price that is sustainable.'

Flood then commented specifically on the £4 million loss the club have to contend with

'Our loss after player sales, Andy Gray and whoever, is getting on for £4m again.

'That means Barry and myself have to find £4m a year after player sales,which isn't really sustainable.

'We want to be in a position where If you put £4m in, you're actually getting two or three new players, rather than propping up a loss.

'When people see a transfer sale in, like Andy Gray, people think that must be £1.5m to spend, but you forget that we're losing £4 after everything.

'We've got to buy smarter, look harder, more flexibly, beyond our league, beyond England, just better at scouting than we have been, and that's all part of the foundations we're putting in, getting more depth to how we secure players.

'Wages are getting higher, fees are getting higher, and you can't just keep putting money in to feed a loss, you have to think outside the box.'

Finally, there was some indication as to when Clarets fans might be seeing the first new faces signing for the club:

'We'll put our best foot forward at the end of June, early July on certain players, and make decisions then, and they will hopefully be here in time for our trip to the States.'

This is a very fair and frank admission by Brendan Flood in my opinion, I guess we just have to learn to be patient and see how the squad stacks up at the start of 2008/9. I have to admit though to being totally impatient and frustrated at times, especially during recent transfer windows. It always seem to be the same story, lots of rumours and links but no signings at the end of the day with all our targets seemingly snapped up by rival clubs.

It really has to be different this time, we currently have just 20 players on the books. 3 of those are young lads, one is a goalkeeper effectively on the transfer list (Kiraly), one is undecided and could still leave (Unsworth), one it would appear would rather play for Crewe (Jones) and Lafferty could be going too!

I just hope we dont rue the decision to get rid of good squad players in my opinion like Spicer and the failure to go the extra mile to secure the services of Harley and James O'Connor.

No doubt everything will be fine and we shall see a shed load of players coming to the club before the transfer window closes.

However,it now looks like we will need at least six players just to keep the same numbers in the squad as last season and even that will ensure we have the smallest list on the back of the proggy compared to most (if not all) of our Championship rivals!

Vital Burnley wish to thank Burnley FC for the use of the Brendan Flood photograph