Barnsley boss will not be handed John Stones windfall

Barnsley manager Paul Heckingbottom Picture: Bruce Rollinson).

The former Reds centre-half moved fom Everton to Manchester City for £47.5m earlier this week, with the Oakwell outfit benefitting from a 15 per cent sell-on clause inserted into the deal for any profit on a future transfer following Stones’ £2.25m move to Goodison Park in January 2013.

The fee is the second biggest ever involving a defender.

But despite the payday, head coach Heckingbottom says that the club will continue to recruit on a sensible and strategic basis, with big-money buys out of the question.

Heckingbottom, who has confirmed that he is hopeful that last season’s top-scorer Sam Winnall could return from a hamstring injury by the end of this month, said: “It is going to be put in a club in a sensible way and filtered in there over time and it is part of the long-term planning.

“It is really beneficial, of course it is.

“But it is not a case of ‘here you go, spend that money’ because we know we have got it coming in.

“If anything changes, I am sure that I will be the first to know. But we have got to be sensible.

“Patrick (Cryne) has committed a lot of money to this club over the years and with the money the club has lost, he has funded himself.

“So it gives us an opportunity for the club to run itself and if we make sensible decisions now, hopefully we will see the benefits of that in the future.”

The extent of Barnsley’s reliance on the financial input of owner Cryne was revealed in the club’s latest accounts announced earlier this year.

The club’s ledgers for 2014-15 season revealed that the Reds made a loss of £3m with owner Cryne offsetting the deficit by introducing £2.9m in ‘future share subscriptions’, while also guaranteeing an overdraft of just under £2m.

Meanwhile, Adam Hammill has revealed that his participation in Wednesday’s home game with QPR is in doubt, with his partner due to give birth to their second child on that date.

Hammill said: “Obviously I want to be there for the birth of my son. But hopefully he will hold out until Thursday.”