BURNLEY co-chairman John Banaszkiewicz says the club is in a strong position to bounce straight back to the Premier League, and admits missed targets in the transfer windows were not entirely down to finance.

The Clarets board has come in for criticism for keeping too tight a hold on the purse strings in pursuit of players fit for the top flight, with one pundit accusing the club of not being competitive enough.

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Watford’s Troy Deeney and Derby County duo Richard Keogh and Craig Bryson were among manager Sean Dyche’s early targets after securing promotion a year ago, but all three chose to stay with their clubs.

Burnley also made offers for West Brom defender Craig Dawson, but a move failed to materialise, while their only transfer activity in the January window was to secure loan signing Michael Keane on a permanent deal from Manchester United.

Banaszkiewicz said missed targets had proved a source of frustration.

But with Queens Park Rangers and Hull City spending upwards of £30million, the Clarets chief said splashing that cash offered no guarantees of survival.

QPR were relegated after a 6-0 defeat at Manchester City on Sunday, while Hull are two points adrift of safety with two games to go.

Burnley, whose biggest summer spend was on George Boyd - a £3m signing from Hull City - will get £60m in parachute payments, spread over the next four years.

With no external debts, unlike QPR who are embroiled in a legal battle to avoid a £58m fine for a breach of Financial Fair Play regulations, allied with ownership of assets such as their Turf Moor ground and Gawthorpe training base, Banaszkiewicz says they are well placed for an immediate return to the top flight.

“Going back into the Championship now we are in a much better position than we were the last time in 2010,” he said.

“We are a lot better off financially. It’s not always the right box to tick, but there is no doubt we are a well organised club, we are building a state of the art facility (at Gawthorpe) and improving other areas, like recruitment. We are in a strong position.

“Going forward we are in a healthy position with the parachute payments.

“Also, we are a lot more united going forward.

“At the end of the game on Saturday the manager and players went across to the fans and got a massive round of applause.

“I think the fans can see what we have tried to do.

“We’ve been unlucky with decisions and a couple of results. The Leicester penalty might have changed things for us, for example.

“We’ve been unlucky up front as well.

“On a positive note a lot of people wrote us off before we even kicked a ball but we took it to two games before the end of the season.

“The fact that we were there right to almost the end showed how well the team did. You have got to give them credit to get where we did.”

Banaskiewicz did not shy away from the fact that squad strengthening efforts fell short, but said they do not regret paying over the odds given the situation of both QPR and Hull.

“We were unlucky getting some of the people we wanted last year, due to a variety of reasons. It wasn’t all down to money,” he said.

“And if you look at QPR and Hull they have spent four times more than we did and are only a point or two away from where we are.

“Finance was part of the reason, but not the only reason.

“We never managed to get some of the targets we wanted to. It’s not just the money. There are other factors as well.

“But we had a budget and a game plan and we stuck to it.

“We got some things, but we didn’t get it all.

“You can throw money at it and it doesn’t always guarantee success.”