BRIAN Laws has warned that Burnley will not be “taken for a ride” and pay over the odds for their summer transfer targets.

The Clarets find themselves in a position of new-found wealth after benefiting from parachute payments totalling £48 million over four seasons, while last month’s club record sale of Steven Fletcher to Wolves further swelled the transfer coffers.

It is an unfamiliar situation for the prudent Turf Moor hierarchy, who have given manager Laws licence to make a series of heavyweight signings before the beginning of the Championship campaign.

Scottish winger Ross Wallace was the latest to join Burnley – signing in the region of £1million on Friday – and his arrival came hot on the heels of separate £500,000 moves for midfielder Dean Marney and striker Chris Iwelumo.

Laws attempted to flex the club’s financial muscle by lodging a £2.5m bid, potentially rising to £4m, for Hearts wideman Andrew Driver, while a reported £1.75m offer was made for last year’s joint top Championship scorer, Cardiff City midfielder Peter Whittingham.

However, those offers, which Burnley considered sensible valuations, were rejected by their respective clubs and, in the case of former England U21 international Driver, Hearts were thought to have demanded £3.5m up front.

Having ended his interest in the former England U21 international, Laws believes clubs may be looking to take advantage of Burnley’s spending power by overpricing their players.

But he insists the Clarets won’t be taken for mugs over the valuation of their transfer targets.

“I don’t think Burnley have been in this position before so it’s new to everybody,” said the Clarets boss.

“But we’re very experienced in financial matters and what we believe is good value for players, so we don’t want to be taken for a ride and have people think we’re an easy target because we’ve got a little bit of money.

“The problem we’re having is a lot of clubs feel that because we’re fairly comfortable with money and in a strong position that they can just pluck a number out of the sky and that’s the one that we’ll pay.

“We’re experienced people in football, we know the values of players and we know what we’re comfortable with. Going beyond that I feel we’ve got to be working very carefully with the finances and to make sure we make the right decisions.

“Certainly if you’re going to pay over the odds, you’re not going to get a return on that player.

“We’ve got to make sure we get it right, and we’re not just going to throw money away.

“It’s taken a long time to get to this point. We’ve got to make sure we do it diligently and we’ll make sure we hit the right buttons, and the Driver one was getting out of hand.”

So far, Laws has parted with £2m of his transfer cash on the trio of Wallace, Iwelumo and Marney, as he looks to build a squad capable of clinching promotion back to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

It is anticipated that he will strengthen further before the start of Championship season on August 7, but the Clarets manager will make sure his signings represent good value for money.

He added: “We’re not going to give it away easily. We want to make sure the targets are right, the players are at the right price and are good value because we want good players who we can bring in and make them better players and hopefully have a real asset.”