BURNLEY manager Sean Dyche has confirmed that he has made at least one bid for a player this January.

But he admitted both he and supporters must exercise patience while they wait to hear back from targets.

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It has been reported that the Clarets have already had an offer turned down for defender James Tarkowski from Brentford.

Ahead of tomorrow's FA Cup third round tie away to Championship rivals Middlesbrough, Dyche would not confirm or deny whether that has been the case - preferring to stick to his policy of not speaking about another club's players.

But he stressed that he was actively seeking to strengthen his squad this month, and had been given the backing to do so, while also being in the strong financial position of not having to sell.

When asked if he had made any bids in the early days of the window he said: "Yes.

"There are some pending situations. When bids are made you don't always get an immediate answer.

"We are trying. We've already put some money in and we'll try to put some more in.

"It takes four parties - our club, another club, player and almost always an agent - who have to say yes," added the Burnley boss, who admitted he had previously been gazumped for targets.

"It's the reality.

"A lot of clubs now have turned into their own kind of agent so the days gone by when you put in a bid and you come to an honourable agreement with a chairman or manager or whatever and carry that deal through - nowadays the bid goes in, they then put that out to tender almost.

"The do it carefully and subliminally and quietly - they do it through all different agents that they may use - to try to get the numbers.

"So almost always early market transfers take time, unless you throw lots and lots and lots of money at a situation where there simply are no other takers.

"I think the market makes it a patient business unless you are one of those clubs with a backer or owner who just keeps throwing money at that situation to make it happen, rather than cut their cloth accordingly to attempt to make it happen."

He added: "There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of phonecalls and texts and emails and information being gathered and analysis and stats.

"It's not just us, don't forget. You've got loads of other clubs trying to do it as well and often after very similar players.

"It's not like a different kind of recruitment industry where you might have IT specialists and there might be 100,000 of them. It's not like that in football, there are only so many players with the skillset needed to push your given situation and our given situation is to push at the top end of the market to try to get back in the Premier League, so therefore you're going into an even more defined market.

"Even though we have got our resources, they're still not market leader resources, which is incredible I think. Five or six years ago when you come out of the Premier League you are the richest and most powerful club, or amongst them. It's just simply not like that now. Things have changed.

"These are all the complexities of the market.

"I'm happy to talk about it because it might just help educate the odd person who still wonders why we aren't doing this and doing that.

"We are trying, and we are attempting on a number of situations.

"We've had a meeting about a number of situations and whether they're going to come our way or not.

"We've needed to do outgoing business in the past, we don't need to do it now.

"It would be more of a choice if we did it rather than having to do it.

"We're in a lot stronger position."