Dyche and Garlick rift leaves Burnley in transfer limbo
Chairman reluctant to invest amid American takeover bids Manager laments thin squad and players out of contract
Burnley are in crisis, with manager Sean Dyche and chairman Mike Garlick’s relationship having severely deteriorated and the club’s drastic need for new signings thrown into turmoil by the prospect of a takeover.
Two rival bidders are competing to take ownership of the club, but the timing of a potential buy-out is wreaking havoc with attempts to strengthen a threadbare squad before the close of the transfer window in less than three weeks.
Senior sources have told The Daily Telegraph that:
The relationship between Dyche and Garlick, once one of the closest manager-chairman dynamics in the top flight, has soured and they now talk far less frequently.
Two American consortiums are battling to win control of the club, but uncertainty over their future has complicated recruitment plans. First-team eam players are worried about the e lack of reinforcements.
Six senior nior players – Jack Cork, Ashley Westwood, Robbie Brady, Matt Lowton, Kevin Long and d Phil Bardsley – are out of contract ontract next summer and the club face a battle to keep some me of them.
Burnley ey have yet to make a significant signing ahead of their opening ening Premier League match at t Leicester on Sunday, nday, despite losing sing Jeff Hendrick, k, Aaron Lennon and Joe Hart at the end of last season. The club ub have been linked nked with the Mainz ainz and Sweden attacking midfielder, er, Robin Quaison, but ut there are growing fears about the campaign, with just t 18 senior outfield utfield players on the books. ks.
To compound matters, three ree of those – captain Ben Mee, midfielder Cork and forward Ash Ashley Barnes – are expected to miss t the Leicester game through injur injury and Burnley face a battle to keep centrehalf James Tarkow Tarkowski, who is wanted by West Ham United and Leicester City. Problems h have been mounting b behind the scenes for som some time. Dyche had hop hoped for increased inves investment in the squad this summer sum by targeting more established players. Ye Yet Garlick has appeared reluctant to alter the model that has wor worked so well under h his watch, a position that seems to have been hardened d during talks over a prospective sale. Sourc Sources claim this, in turn, ha has deepened tensions w with the manager.
It has left Burnley in a sta state of limbo and a position where they are unable to compete for s some of the pla players pursu sued by rival c clubs.
Winger Ryan Fraser joined Newcastle on a free transfer from Bournemouth last week, but his mooted £100,000-a-week wage demands meant he was never even an option for Burnley.
Similarly, the highest fee Burnley have paid for a player is £15 million – the cost of signing Chris Wood and Ben Gibson from Leeds and Middlesbrough respectively. Aston Villa, by contrast, have just signed forward Ollie Watkins for £28 million from Brentford – a deal Burnley could never have countenanced.
Dyche struggled to conceal his frustration when the Premier League resumed in June, and hit out at the club’s failure to extend the contracts of players whose original deals were due to expire at the end of that month.
“We have let contracts run a long way down unfortunately,” he said. “It is with the chairman now and I will wait and see what he does with it because I am not in that loop.”
Senior players are also known to have raised their growing concerns with the manager. Dyche’s exasperation is understood to have only increased in subsequent months as he faces the prospect of again being asked to work wonders on a meagre budget with a thin, ageing squad.
“The main difficulty is finance, it has always been difficult here,” Dyche said this week.
“It’s a challenge, the group needs reinforcements. We are looking, but it is not an easy situation.”
With two years left on his own contract, which is worth £3.5 million annually including bonuses, Dyche seems unlikely to be going anywhere unless a club comes in for his services, but it remains to be seen what changes a potential takeover would bring about.