Burnley manager Sean Dyche has blamed Fulham for his side’s lack of transfer activity last summer and insisted he won’t spend big in January because he fears it could ruin the club financially.

The Clarets were fairly quiet in the last transfer window ahead of their return to the Premier League, signing eight players with three of them costing nothing.

But with a paper-thin squad being exposed by three injuries in their 3-3 draw with Newcastle, Dyche told talkSPORT that his work in the marketplace was several disrupted by the Championship side’s £11million swoop for Ross McCormack, which saw asking prices for players rise dramatically.

And Dyche has reiterated he is unwilling to spend big when the winter window opens for fear of destabilising Burnley’s long-term future.

He told the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast: “The fact of the matter is we’ve been in the market the whole time. We showed a little bit in the summer and spent £7million on six or seven players, which I appreciate is not a fortune in the Premier League but it is in the world of Burnley.

“The simple challenge we have got is that the market has run away this year. Since the [Ross] McCormack deal to Fulham the market has run away. We were in for a number of players who we felt could operate at this level, some coming in from the Championship, but the numbers were unbelievable.

“We tried signing players from clubs who, with all due respect to our own, are actually bigger [than Burnley], in terms of the history. They have bigger backers. They go in for a player and all of a sudden it [the price] has escalated beyond the world that we live in and then you’ve got the wages to boot.

“We could [spend money] but it would ruin the club for the next 30 years, we’ve seen that so many times. It [our spending] has to be balanced. Yes, we’re in the market. We’re already making lines of communication with certain parties and if we think we can get things done that we think can affect the group, then we will do.

“But on the other hand if it puts the club at risk going forward [we won’t do a deal], bearing in mind a year ago we had to sell Charlie Austin. No choice. We had to sell him to make the club work.

“It’s challenging for me as a manager because you want good players, and you want players who can enhance your chance of being in the Premier League. On the other hand though I’m not in the business of ruining clubs. My job is to help build the club.”