WE need to spend some money in the transfer market.

It is a cry heard up and down the land by football fans desperate for new signings.

It has certainly been a theme at Burnley in recent windows, the Clarets added just Peter Crouch – on a free transfer – in January. Many supporters wanted Sean Dyche to splash more cash to try and ensure Premier League survival.

But Burnley, for better or worse, do not operate in the same sphere as most other Premier League clubs – and plenty of Championship ones as well for that matter.

The Clarets are not bankrolled by billionaires, their wages are among the lowest in the top flight, their record transfer fee of £15m, for Chris Wood, is lower than any other Premier League club aside from Cardiff.

Swooping in for big money deals is not that simple when you’re Burnley, that’s not to say the Clarets won’t spend, it’s just any outlay needs to fit the financial model, as Technical Director Mike Rigg explains.

“When people say ‘just sign this player or that player’, it’s harder than it looks,” he said.

“The general idea is we have a group of players, players coming through the academy, contracted first team players, and what we’re constantly trying to do is reinvent that - every club more or less has the same vision, Premier League success, and a trading profit.

“If we were Manchester City, they might not care what it costs and go out and buy this or that player for £100m, because they are about winning the Premier League or Champions League.

“But our plan is to avoid becoming financially unstable but stay in the Premier League. And we don’t want to make a shed load of money and get relegated.

“So we have to aim to be in the Premier League year after year and aim to be financially self-sufficient.

“That’s a really contentious issue with some football fans, who want you to spend the money, but my job is to try and make sure we achieve both the best way I can.

“None of us want to become a Bolton, and it can easily happen. Fulham also, a great club bankrolled by a billionaire, but they spent £125m and could still get relegated.

“I think, as a club, we don’t want to look back having spent a load of money but finding ourselves in League One.

“So we have two plans, the football plan, and the business plan, and the key is how we get both working together.”

Rigg joined the club in November and has already implemented a new analytical system at Turf Moor which the Clarets hope will help their recruitment model.

The hard work is already going on behind the scenes ahead of the summer and Rigg is hopeful Burnley will act quickly and decisively when the window opens.

“We have got three deadlines, May 12, which is the end of the season,” he said.

“By the time the season finishes between me and the manager we want to make sure we have got a good handle on things. You have got July 1 which is the second deadline because that is roughly around the start of pre-season so if we can do our business between May and July and give the manager as much time to work on his squad then great but unfortunately a lot of that is out of our hands because the third deadline is the transfer window, August 8.

“If we do all this work but the selling club goes ‘we’ll keep this until August 7 because I am going to bargain and try and get as much out of this as I can’ then we can’t control that, or we can by paying three times over the odds.

“It is making sure that the business and the football plan comes together.”