BURNLEY boss Sean Dyche has revealed he was priced out of a move for Ollie Watkins.

The Clarets tracked the forward, who they will come up against at Aston Villa on Thursday night, while he was starring for Brentford in the Championship.

But carrying a £20million pricetag at the time, in November 2018 - even before his best season for the Bees - put him beyond Burnley's budget.

Dyche instead spent half that amount on securing Jay Rodriguez from West Brom for a second spell at his boyhood club, while Watkins, who scored 26 goals last season, went on to be reunited with his former Brentford boss Dean Smith at Villa Park for an initial £28m fee in the summer.

In assessing Villa's form this season, Dyche made the disclosure about his one-time target.

“The players in an attacking sense have a number of different ways of operating, often with the floating wide players and a centre forward, whoever that may be," he said.

“Ollie Watkins is certainly one they’ve brought in for a lot of money, and done well, I think.

“(He is) a player we’ve looked at, but the numbers keep rising and rising and rising, and Villa have got those numbers.

"For a player who has done very, very well outside the Premier League to move for that amount of money is a big fee.

"Villa obviously decided they were going to pay it so it is simple. It is not actually rocket science, it is just you need a chairman and a board who will spend that money. If you haven't got that then it doesn't get spent so it is simple."

With another transfer window looming at the turn of the year, a frustrating numbers game in terms of squad size and budget seems set to continue for Dyche, who was only able to add two players in the summer.

"Most clubs know the runners and riders, know the players who are going well, have done consistently well over time, the possibles, it is putting the money up to get those players and that is something I have mentioned many times about this club beginning to stretch itself and learn that the market doesn't care whether we want to spend or not, it is saying 'you've got to.' So it is a simple equation," he said.

Villa's spending power since returning to the Premier League in has been vast. Indeed in the summer after securing promotion from the Championship in 2019 they were the second biggest spenders behind Manchester United, with a £144.5m outlay on 12 players.

It did not looking like money well spent as survival went down to the wire. A point away to West Ham kept them up on the final day.

But Dyche feels, after a shaky first season back in the top flight and further squad enhancement in the summer - including the capture of Watkins - Villa have found their feet.

“It’s not just about their attacking prowess, I think they’ve found a format that suits them better, that balance we all look for in management, attack one end and defend the other," said the Burnley boss ahead of Thursday night's clash at Villa Park, where the Clarets go in search of back-to-back wins for the first time this season, following a first Premier League win away to Arsenal on Sunday.

“They’ve found a way of working that is so far suiting them. Our job is to find a way that stops them from operating as clearly as they want, and find a way of making the game as much about us and uncomfortable for them, so we can go and take on the game."