BURNLEY boss Stan Ternent revealed today why he insists on being so secretive about his plans to strengthen the Turf Moor squad for a possible promotion push in the Second Division next season.

He doesn't want to raise false hopes among the club's supporters, or to mislead them.

Mitchell Thomas, Dean West, John Mullin, Nicky Daws and Martin Smith are just a handful of the players who have been disclosed as possible Ternent targets in recent weeks.

But the manager has stayed silent, steadfastly refusing to comment on all the speculation.

And he wants to explain to the fans just why he will not be drawn on details of the men he is chasing - especially in view of the way the supporters are backing the club with a positive response to season-ticket sales.

"We are being linked with all sorts of names and, yes, there are a lot of players who I am interested in," he said.

"But I won't be telling anybody who they are until I have a signature on a piece of paper.

"Then I'll do my talking.

"If you talk about signing a pleyer prematurely you can build people's hopes up and then he might decide to go elsewhere.

"I don't want to give the fans false hopes. I have a duty to act responsibly. "But it's no problem to me when newspapers speculate. I understand that.

"They have a job to do the same as I have and it's all part of the fun around the game, guessing who's coming and who's going.

"Everybody knows what goes on.

"Agents put out fliers, so do players and clubs but I am just not going to get involved in commenting on speculation."

Ternent believes the demand for season tickets reflects the fact that Burnley supporters feel there could be some good times on the way.

"I think they can see we are putting a reasonable squad together," he said.

"That was shown by the run at the end of the season and it's good to see the fans respond."

If he can make the right sort of additions to the squad then Burnley will be fancied to push for promotion after their 11-match unbeaten run to climb away from possible trouble.

Ternent already believes he has the foundations of a squad capable of challenging and was also delighted by a little bit of national recognition for two of his players, Steve Davis and Glen Little.

In a poll conducted by FourFourTwo magazine, the votes of managers, players and fans placed Davis fourth in the top 50 Second Division players from last season.

Fulham's Chris Coleman and Geoff Horsfield and Sean Gregan (Preston) were the only men ahead of him.

Little finished number 37 in the same list.

"It's always good to see things like that," said the manager. "It's a feather in our cap."

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