SEAN Dyche hopes the January transfer window will prove more productive as the search to strengthen his squad continues.

The Clarets were down to the bare bones after losing Dean Marney and Danny Ings to injury for the midweek draw with Watford, and defender Michael Duff to a one-match suspension.

Both Ings and Marney are making progress ahead of today’s home game against Barnsley, but for the long-term Dyche is determined to bring in back-up.

Burnley were frustrated in their attempts to add reinforcements before the loan window closed last week, with rival Championship teams reluctant to lend a helping hand to a side who had laid solid foundations for a promotion challenge.

But Dyche hopes a more open market, when permanent moves can be made, will work more in his side’s favour.

“It can be (more straightforward) in January,” he said. “There wasn’t that much movement in the recent window.

“When it comes to January who knows, it might develop further with changes of managers, changes of thoughts, clubs at the top, middle and bottom all searching for different things, sometimes they (players) start moving again.”

And Dyche, who continues to be linked with Sunderland striker Connor Wickham who is currently on loan at Sheffield Wednesday, insists their monitoring of the market does not stop just because transfers are off limits until the new year.

“It’s a constant work in progress for us,” said the Burnley boss. “People inferred that there were weird angles on why we couldn’t do this or that, but it’s very simple, it’s just business.

“One of the hardest things is those players want to play. Loan players are different, especially young players now. You’d be surprised how many Premier League clubs will let you have players only if they play and only if they start.

“At our stage, with what we’re achieving now and how the players are working then that’s almost an impossibility, especially for strikers with how ours have been playing.”

However, while Dyche wants new faces in January, he reiterated that he is operating to a tight budget.

A shareholders meeting was held at Turf Moor last night to go over the annual report and a £7.6million loss for the financial year ending in June.

“We’ve still got a small squad, we still haven’t got massive resources,” he said.

“It hasn’t changed. We’re not getting double the people in the building so therefore there’s no massive influx of massive resources.

“We’ll use it (money) as wisely as we can when it comes available to align the right people.”