BURNLEY chairman Barry Kilby is ready to dig deep again to boost Stan Ternent's fighting fund.

Clarets boss Ternent is battling to sign up to eight new players with no transfer funds at his disposal.

And Kilby, who has already bailed the club out several times in the past, hopes another cash injection will at least offer his manager some room for manoeuvre with wages.

Kilby revealed: "There will probably be a need to inject more cash this season. It's a rough old road we are on at present and it all depends on the bounce of a ball.

"The vicious circle is that if you do badly, your income starts to drop and things get worse."

Kilby revealed the Burnley board injected £2m last season - half of which came out of his own pocket - to help offset losses.

And the self-made millionaire, a lifelong Clarets fan, accepts that any further donations will also be swallowed up by the general running of the club he loves.

Kilby added: "One of the problems with football in general these days is that people who invest are looking to make a return on capital.

"They are more and more ruthless the higher you go, looking for success, Champions League football and trophies to fill the cabinet.

"What Burnley does have in its favour is a board who are all fans. I have put £3m in capital into the club and I don't expect to see any of that again.

"But it's what you want to do - and what else would you do with it?

"You can only eat so much and wear so much, so that's why I do it. That, and the fact I want us to get us up there.

"We've already done that to some extent and now we have to fight to stay where we are."

Most Nationwide clubs find themselves backed against a wall following the cash crisis engulfing football outside the top flight.

But Kilby reckons the resulting crisis will at least help to level the playing field once the dust has settled.

He explained: "It's not just losing the TV income - we can cope with that. It's the collapse of the transfer market that has gone along with that.

"Where clubs once had assets they could trade against and sell, suddenly all that has evaporated into thin air.

"How many players from the first division will now be sold on to the Premiership? You can probably count them on one hand, so you can't rely on transfer income at all.

"There is a new realism in football and we all have to make it work."