Football League World
·5 August 2024
Football League World
·5 August 2024
Scott Parker has some trimming of the Burnley fat to do over the next few weeks.
Burnley's squad is bursting at the seam, and players need to be offloaded where possible.
Scott Parker certainly has a very talented group of players to work with, but, as other managers have found out at other teams, it's hard to keep a cohesive unit when some of the cogs simply aren't being used or aren't required.
There's scope for plenty of the the Clarets' playing staff to leave before the end of August. Scott Twine and Luke McNally may end up going to Bristol City in a swap deal that would see the Robins' Scottish international striker Tommy Conway come up to Turf Moor.
McNally is also attracting the attention of some other second EFL sides, including Birmingham City and Stoke City, according to Football Insider.
Sales aren't the only way for Parker to loosen his squad's proverbial belt though. They've already let players like Michael Mellon leave Turf Moor temporarily, and these two could follow down the same path before the end of the summer window.
The 21-year-old defender has already had two spells away from the club since joining from Manchester City in the summer of 2022.
Egan-Riley spent time in Scotland with Hibernian and in the Netherlands with PSV Eindhoven. Both of those terms saw him play much more consistently than he has done for his parent club - albeit the trip to the Netherlands was to play for PSV's under-21's team.
The ex-Citizens man did rack up a few appearances in the promotion winning 2022/23 season, but he's really not featured much for Burnley since his arrival as a teenager.
While the Clarets may be in need of a right-back option (he can also play in the centre of defence too), Egan-Riley hasn't leapt out as one of the standout candidates for that role in the upcoming campaign, and a move away from Turf Moor, again, may be his only way of getting decent minutes.
His time in the Dutch second tier certainly suggests that he is ready for some kind of football somewhere, so there should be clubs that want to take him on. It'll be up to Burnley to find a cub that suits him well, and will test his abilities so that he can develop.
Dara Costelloe has had similarly limited action in the Burnley first team over the past couple of seasons. His only league appearances during Vincent Kompany's tenure came two seasons ago, before he was soon out of the team and out on loan.
Like Egan-Riley, the 21-year-old Irish forward has also been north of the border temporarily. Costelloe was with St Johnstone for the first half of last season. He then joined Dundee FC from January onwards.
His last 18 months have been entirely spent on loan, with a period with Bradford City at the backend of the 2022/23 campaign under his belt as well. So it only makes sense for him to head somewhere else once again in order to get some decent game time.
He was mainly used on the wings by the respective Scottish sides that had him last time out, which didn't seem to do him any favours as he only wrapped up one goal and two assists across the campaign.
Live