Rotherham United are not expecting to see Ben Wiles leave for Burnley after the Championship outfit saw a third bid worth £2 million rejected by The Millers, as reported by The Star.
The confidence is hardly misplaced either.
Yes, Burnley made a trio of bids for one of the EFL’s most exciting young midfielders earlier this summer. Yes, Wiles is keen on the idea of working under the legendary Vincent Kompany at Turf Moor, having grown frustrated with Rotherham’s reluctance to let him go (The Athletic).
But things have gone quiet since The Clarets’ most recent offer – one in excess of £2 million – was batted away by the newly-promoted Millers. And with good reason.
Burnley have since completed the bargain, £700,000 signing of one-time £11 million West Ham target Samuel Bastien from Standard Liege.
And Josh Cullen now looks set to join him in a new-look central midfield partnership. Cullen, who played the best football of his career alongside Kompany at Anderlecht, should be unveiled as a Burnley player in the coming days after the Lancashire outfit increased their initial £1.8 million to offer to around £3 million.
Josh Cullen instead of Ben Wiles for Burnley
The ship, then, appears to have sailed as far as Wiles is concerned.
Cullen and Bastien join Jack Cork, Josh Brownhill and Ashley Westwood at Turf Moor. Adam Phillips, meanwhile, is training with the first-team after a couple of impressive loan spells at Morecambe in Leagues One and Two.
Dwight McNeil, assuming he stays, can also play through the middle, even if he remains more effective in a wider role. Burnley’s focus, then, will switch to reinforcing their ranks at centre-forward and at centre-half, as Nathan Collins enters talks with Wolves.
“(We are) not a selling club. But, unless you’re Man City, everyone has a price on their head,” Rotherham boss Paul Warne said of Wiles last week.
“We’ve turned down a decent bid for Dan Barlaser, we’ve turned down three bids for Wilesy. The last was over £2million. These are very good players that we value. We don’t want to sell but everyone has a value.
“The offers that have come in are nowhere near our valuation. They are our players, they understand it, I have spoken honestly about it.
“We are a really healthy club. We don’t want people to come in and take our players. They are our prized assets.”
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