Samuel Bastien to Burnley shows Vincent Kompany's transfer strategy is on right path

Samuel Bastien is poised to be the next arrival at Turf Moor with Burnley closing in on a permanent move for the midfielder.

The 25-year-old is set to join for around £800,000 from Standard Liege in Belgium and will provide competition in the middle of the park. The Clarets have Jack Cork, Josh Brownhill and Ashley Westwood as options in the centre, albeit the latter is a few months away from returning from a serious ankle injury.

Bastien's arrival would take the number of new faces to five and he would become the first aged over 22. That represents a significant move for Vincent Kompany and Burnley who, while rightly keen to lower the average age of the squad and pursue young talent, have a balance to strike between youth and experience.

Kompany has been impressed with the senior core in place at Turf Moor, with Jack Cork captaining the side against Rochdale in pre-season last week. And the Belgian hopes the arrival of young blood can blend nicely with the experience already in place.

In Bastien, the Clarets have a player who sits in the middle. A player in his peak years and a player who is good enough to have more than 150 senior appearances under his belt and to have attracted the transfer interest of Liverpool and West Ham United in previous windows.

A player of his calibre arriving at Burnley is something of a coup with Kompany again playing a role, as is the need of Bastien's club Liege to raise money after a disappointing domestic season. They may only be getting a modest fee for a player in the final year of his contract but will also be moving a high wage earner off the books having signed the DR Congo international from Chievo for around £3million in 2018.

The player could have gone elsewhere at that