BURNLEY are undergoing a backroom shake-up, with Frank McParland set to be announced as the club’s new director of football.

And the appointment could leave the future of Lee Darnborough, the club’s head of recruitment and analytics, in doubt after two and a half years at the club.

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McParland recently left a similar position at Brentford, coinciding with manager Mark Warburton and assistant manager David Weir’s departures from the London club at the end of the season, despite taking the Bees to the Championship play-off final just 12 months after securing promotion from League One.

McParland, who previously worked with Burnley manager Sean Dyche as chief scout at Watford, has a long history with Liverpool.

He is credited as the man who pushed to sign Raheem Sterling, and before that he was the club’s chief scout under Rafa Benitez.

He went on to become academy director but was sacked in 2013 after Reds chief executive Ian Ayre announced a change of direction for the club.

McParland, a former general manager at Bolton Wanderers, was not out of work for long, walking almost straight into a role as director of football at Brentford.

Five months after his appointment, and his recruitment of Weir as coach, the Bees won promotion to the Championship for the first time in 21 years, and followed that up with a top six finish in their first season.

He is expected to join the Clarets next week, with Darnborough understood to be leaving his role.

Darnborough was initially appointed by Eddie Howe in 2012, from a similar role at West Brom, but did not work with the former Burnley boss as Howe returned for a second spell in charge at Bournemouth.

The appointment was sanctioned by the Clarets’ Board before Dyche was appointed, but was backed by the new manager.

Darnborough’s duties were to oversee recruitment, transfer business, contract negotiations and performance analysis in support of manager Sean Dyche and chief executive Lee Hoos.

But the recruitment department came in for criticism during Burnley’s Premier League season, with Michael Keane’s loan move being made permanent the only January business, while on the summer transfer deadline day Dyche had to meet Keane and Nathaniel Chalobah in person to secure loan deals just before the cut-off.

Meanwhile, Burnley are waiting for Danny Ings to make a decision on his future before finalising their transfer budget for the 2015/16 Championship season.

The striker seems set for a move to Liverpool but reports yesterday suggested Tottenham were preparing a £12million offer for the out-of-contract striker.

With the compensation fee due to the Clarets being in the region of £4m-£5m this would seem out of character for Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.