CHRIS Waddle will open talks tomorrow aimed at ironing out his future at Turf Moor.

And he will also make detailed contract offers to the players he wants to keep next season.

The Burnley player-boss will meet chairman Frank Teasdale in the morning no doubt keen to assess exactly the direction the club is going amid the pending takeover.

Waddle is almost 12 months into a three-year deal as manager but will want assurances about his position and what resources will be available to him with potential new owners waiting in the wings.

"I will have a chat with the chairman and put my views to him and see what the reaction is," Waddle said today.

"If it's positive that's great, if not obviously we have a lot to talk about."

Having kept the Clarets up on the back of a steep learning curve in his first year in management Waddle's position should be rubber-stamped to let him and the playing staff at the club know where they stand and build for next season.

The Burnley boss has a holiday booked before doing media work at the World Cup in France, which starts on June 10, so time is of the essence.

Waddle hopes to know by next week which of his out-of-contract players offered new deals - including Gerry Harrison, Damian Matthew and Mark Winstanley - will be staying so he can start planning his summer transfer strategy.

He added: "Once we put it to them in their own minds they should know in the next couple of days.

"By the end of next week they have got to say yes or no. It's up to them to go and see their agents to see if they can get better elsewhere and if they feel they I can't do anything about that. "I don't think they will get better elsewhere than the offers that will be made to them but if they do good luck to them."

Waddle, who will also confirm the names of the players that will be released, goes into the vital talks in a much stronger bargaining position thanks to Saturday's relegation-beating win over Plymouth.

"It's a relief," he admitted after a couple of days to digest events. "Everybody is full of praise and whatever and it's well done to the lads. It's nice, with all due respect, to know that we won't be playing some of the clubs below.

"The importance of it is to reflect on it and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Meanwhile, staying up felt better than going up for Burnley defender Chris Brass.

Brass revealed that beating Plymouth on Saturday more satisfaction than the Clarets' promotion to the First Division in 1994.

"My brother rang me up and asked me which was better, staying up or when we got promoted to the First Division," he said.

"My initial feeling was that it was better on Saturday. You have achieved something with promotion but it is an added bonus. It we had been relegated I would have been absolutely distraught."

Brass was not an established first team player when the Clarets went up four years ago but his reaction also reflected the fact that Burnley were just one game away from dropping into the Football League basement going into the weekend decider.

And he admitted that the implications of Burnley's win, coupled with Brentford's defeat at Bristol Rovers, were still hitting home. Brass added: "It's still just sinking in. I just sat there on Saturday night looking at teletext and seeing that we had stayed up.

"When you think of all the implications if we had gone down it would have been disastrous, on a personal note for career prospects and for the club it would have been a disaster.

"You want to put it behind you but also to learn from it. We have got a lot of youngsters in the side, myself included, and we will see what happens but hopefully we will build on this.

"We know now we never want to be in this position again in our careers.

Brass has not yet hung up his boots for the summer, however, and volunteered for reserve action against York City at Turf Moor tonight (kick-off 7.15) when the Clarets need to win to clinch promotion and the Pontin's League Second Division title.

"I have put myself forward. I don't want to steal their thunder but if there are any knocks or injuries I said I would play," he said.

York are sending a largely young team but will include former Derby and Sunderland striker Marco Gabbiadini who is being released by the Minstermen this summer.

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