BURNLEY chief executive Paul Fletcher has insisted that Eddie Howe will have the final say if the club receive bids for any of their star players this summer.

The Clarets face a second season in the Championship next term after missing out on a play-off spot this time around, with the likes of Jay Rodriguez and Chris Eagles attracting admiring glances from other clubs after impressing this season.

Burnley will receive another parachute payment of £16m for their second season after relegation from the top flight but the club allowed Steven Fletcher to join Wolves for £7.5m last summer and also accepted a bid from Rangers from Eagles.

The winger had only a year left on his contract at the time but opted to turn down the move, while weeks later the Clarets rejected an offer from Galatasaray from Andre Bikey.

The club will now wait to see whether they face similar dilemmas this summer but, although Burnley were forced to sell star players on a number of occasions in their days before promotion to the Premier League, Fletcher says that Howe will be the man to decide whether to accept any offers that may come their way.

“It is a tough situation to judge but every single club in the country is in the same boat,” said Fletcher.

“There is no football club in the country who is not under some financial pressure to sell, regardless of whether you have parachute payments.

“We have to be very careful. We have to live within our means.

“But we have faith in Eddie Howe. He knows what he wants and he will be the one who judges these things.

“We will leave it to the manager and we will back his decisions as long as he sticks within the budget we have here.”

Howe has already voiced his determination to keep hold of Rodriguez, saying that QPR ‘would be told to go away’ if they made a bid for a striker who recently signed a new two-year deal.

Eagles, Bikey and Tyrone Mears are among those now entering the final year of their contracts but the manager is keen to keep his best players at the club and seems likely to resist offers unless he is convinced they are in the best interests of the club moving forward.