Speculation increases as co-chairmen speak

Last updated : 14 June 2014 By Tony Scholes
Richard Keogh in training at Gawthorpe with Wade Elliott and James O'Connor

Firstly, John B spoke to the Burnley Express about the speculation surrounding Danny Ings. The striker is about to move into the last year of his contract but John, commenting on the recent rumours that he could be interesting Southampton, said: "I haven't had anything at all from them or received anything from Southampton.

"We haven't had any formal approach but regardless it's in our interests to keep him because he's been a great asset to the club. We'd like him to stay, he's still contracted to us and we'd like to maintain that for next season."

He stressed: "We absolutely want to keep our key players. We hope we'll be using a lot of the team for next season. It's all about team synergy to enhance our prospects. We do obviously need to build the squad ready for the Premier League as well."

He said that we were working around the clock to bring in the right players for next season and his co-chairman Mike Garlick went on to tell the Lancashire Telegraph: "We have target players, but we also have a target budget and we intend to stick to it.

"The feelers have been put out for targets and we are working hard to bring players in. Some things might come off and some things might not. A lot of people are away at the moment so it might be the end of the month when things start to come to fruition."

He added: "It might be that not everyone is here for day one, and by day one I mean pre-season rather than the first game of the season. We are looking to invest in the right players, but we will stick to our budget."

Those messages concur with Sean Dyche's recent comment that it may well be close to the date the players return for pre-season before there is any news and I believe that return date is very early in July.

But it doesn't stop the speculation, and, as is often the case, it is guided by Alan Nixon who yesterday used social media to report a Burnley interest in Derby pair Richard Keogh and Craig Bryson.

According to Nixon we've offered around £2.5 million for the pair with Bryson having a £750,000 buy-out clause.

The 27-year-old Keogh was Derby's replacement for Jason Shackell two summers ago and he's a player who once came close to becoming a Claret . It's nine years since we confirmed his signing after being released by Stoke only for the move to be cancelled on the following day.

He's played 75 league games for Derby since signing from Coventry in the summer of 2012 whilst Bryson has been there one year longer, signing from Kilmarnock. Also 27, he's scored 27 goals in 121 league appearances for the Rams.

Last season Keogh started 41 of Derby's league games as they came the closest to pushing us for promotion; Bryson started 43 and added two more substitute appearances to that, netting 16 times whilst also adding 12 assists.

They are certainly two names worth considering as is Craig Dawson who, according to some sources, we made two offers for during the week, both of which were turned down.

There still appears to be some real interest in Troy Deeney and there are suggestions there that Watford might struggle to hang onto him during the close season. Deeney was always going to be a link because of his association with Dyche but one striker we were linked with who I am sure we can rule out now is Sunderland's Connor Wickham.

Wickham got back in the team at Sunderland for the last few games of the season and scored key goals against Man City and Chelsea to help keep them in the Premier League.

Other names will come into the reckoning, I'm sure. Cardiff's Don Cowie is one such name but, again, is this because of the connections with our manager at Watford? In fact, Watford are favoured to get him back to Vicarage Road.

We're just nine weeks away from the opening game of the season but that's plenty of time to get our squad together despite the occasional panic thread on the message board.