BURNLEY boss Sean Dyche believes he has snapped up an excellent all-round midfielder in Josh Brownhill.

The former Bristol City captain has joined for an undisclosed fee, penning a four-and-a-half-year contract – with the option of a further 12 months.

Brownhill will be competing with Jack Cork, Ashley Westwood and Jeff Hendrick for a spot in the middle of the park.

The 24-year-old is not set to be thrown straight in against Arsenal at Turf Moor on Sunday and will be given time to develop.

But Dyche believes he’s got a player who brings a wide range of attributes in the middle of the park.

“I think he’s a team player, can use the ball, cover the ground when needed, a modern midfield player,” the Burnley boss said.

“You want a bit of everything, rather than one slot you can fill, you want someone who can adapt, and, yet again, we aren’t blessed with the money to buy players who literally fit into a system, we have to buy players who can develop and learn, and adapt to a system.

“He’s certainly got that open-mindedness, I spoke to him about that today, and he seems like ‘okay, I’ll take on whatever is needed’.”

Clarets fans will recall the former Preston man scoring for North End against the Clarets in a friendly back in the summer of 2014.

While Dyche admits saying he has tracked Brownhill since that moment is a bit of a stretch, plenty of work has gone into making sure he will be a good fit at Turf Moor.

The deal represents another where Burnley have delved into the Championship and backed a player to make the step up to the Premier League.

Dyche said: “I wasn’t really looking then, to be honest, even I haven’t got that big a crystal ball!”

“But we’ve known about him a while, and it is one of the market’s we’ve historically used, usually because of finance - it’s a more affordable market than others.

“Particularly in the last year or so, with a bit more trouble in the Championship than there was three years ago.

“Equally, it’s the quality of the player, and not just that, we’ve often looked for players, obvious ones like Tarky (James Tarkowski), Popey (Nick Pope), (Johann Berg) Gudmundsson, and people like that, then we’ve done pretty well over the period I’ve been here.

“And they weren’t necessarily ready the moment we got them, but became ready - even Keano (Michael Keane), people forget he was a couple of million from Man U, which now looks ridiculous.

“So it’s the ability to keep learning a keep moving forward, that’s a big part of it, and why our background checks are so, so important, the character of a person, that is an important factor when we recruit, and he’s someone we certainly feel has a good character.

“Lee Johnson obviously trusted him to be captain as well, at a pretty young age, so I think that’s another sign of the type he is.

“And, really, we want to see if he can make the step into what the Premier League is.”