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It's The Fab Four!

Clarets quartet sign new deals to extend Turf Moor stays

2021-01-30T16:00:40.023Z

It's The Fab Four!

Clarets quartet sign new deals to extend Turf Moor stays

2021-01-30T16:00:40.023Z

Clarets quartet sign new deals to extend Turf Moor stays

The Clarets have agreed new contracts with four more senior players as they keep together the core of a squad that is playing its fifth successive season of Premier League football.

Defenders Matt Lowton and Kevin Long have signed new two-year deals, along with winger Johann Berg Gudmundsson, to extend their stays until June, 2023.

And left-back Erik Pieters has also prolonged his time at Turf Moor after an option to extend his contract until the end of the 2021/22 season was activated by the club.

The quartet follow midfielders Jack Cork, Ashley Westwood and club captain Ben Mee in signing new deals to commit to the Clarets.

And with strikers Jay Rodriguez and Matej Vydra also penning contract extensions earlier this season, the Clarets have taken key strides in continuing to move forward with a group of proven Premier League performers under manager Sean Dyche.

Dyche said: “It’s an important time with the transition of one chairman and owner to the next chairman and owners to make sure we’re planning – and I’ve said this all along – not just outside by recruitment but inside as well.

“We have to make sure good people, good players and good servants to the club remain so and in agreeing these contracts, they’re certainly putting their front foot forward and saying ‘yes, we want to be part of it, we enjoy the challenge and we want to take it on’.

“And that’s the mentality we need.”

Gudmundsson, Lowton, Pieters and Long have made over 400 Burnley appearances between them and all featured in one of the most successful spells in the Clarets’ history.

Lowton, 31, leads the way with over 150 games since signing from Aston Villa in 2015 and helping the Clarets win promotion back to the Premier League in his first season.

Gudmundsson, 30, has made over 100 Premier League appearances as part of a squad which brought European football to Turf Moor three years ago, while Long, 30, extends his record as the club’s longest-serving player who has been an integral member of a squad that has played six of the last seven seasons in the top-flight.

And former Netherlands international Pieters, 32, has earned his contract extension after making 43 appearances since signing from Stoke City in July, 2019 and last season helping the Clarets secure their second top-10 finish in the Premier League.

“A lot of the players over our time here have been a very strong force in what we’ve achieved, and they continue to be that,” added Dyche.

“The main thing for me is players who want to re-sign for the hunger and desire to be part of Burnley Football Club.

“All the players who have re-signed this year have clearly shown that, with others possibly doing that as we go forward.”

In a productive round of business ahead of Sunday’s Premier League game at Chelsea, the Clarets – who moved into the ownership of ALK Capital under chairman Alan Pace at the turn of the year – have also completed the permanent signing of young midfielder Anthony Gomez Mancini.

The Clarets have activated a clause in the loan agreement that brought the France under-19 international to Turf Moor on loan from Angers in September to secure Gomez Mancini on a deal until June, 2022.

The 19-year-old has impressed in the Clarets’ Under-23s so far this season and made it as far as the bench at first-team level.