Derby County proved the ultimate winners from £22m Burnley sales | OneFootball

Two of Derby's biggest-ever sales saw players move to Burnley and ultimately have unsuccessful spells

Derby County doing business with Burnley was a relatively common theme back in the day, with the pair striking up many deals, but it was two big ones across a two-year period that were particularly successful for the Rams.

In recent history, it's always been Burnley that have been the higher-ranked of the pair, with the Clarets achieving what the Rams had so desperately been aiming for - promotion to the Premier League.

That was ultimately enough to put them above Derby in the footballing food chain,and Sean Dyche made good use of that advantage by swooping to take two of the best players the Rams have had in the last decade - Matej Vydra and Jeff Hendrick

Although both the deals for Vydra and Hendrick at the time served as crushing blows for the Rams, they were undoubtedly the winners in the long run, with neither of the pair going on to achieve very much in or after their Turf Moor spells.

Derby County got the better end of those big-money moves

Mel Morris certainly isn't an adored figure among Derby fans but there's no doubt that he negotiated two fantastic deals for Vydra and Hendrick, both of which stood the club in slightly better stead at the time.

Obviously, various financial difficulties ultimately proved the Rams undoing, but at the time, those numbers were huge.

In fact, they still are, as the £11m they received for Vydra, and the £10.5m for Hendrick, still stand as the two biggest fees the club have ever received, according to Transfermarkt.

Vydra earned his move to Turf Moor on the back of an exceptional 2017/18 Championship campaign in which he netted 21 goals and scooped the Golden Boot, but even still, his goals were only good enough to earn Derby a play-off spot, where they were beaten in the semi-finals.

The Vydra money helped purchase Jack Marriott and Martyn Waghorn, although most Derby fans would acknowledge that neither came close to filling the void the Czech international left behind.

Hendrick was a slightly different profile to Vydra in the sense his success had been over a number of years, and having risen through the Derby youth ranks, there was more of a sense of attachment to his departure in 2016.

In a strange quirk of fate though, it was the Hendrick money that financed a move for Vydra in the same window.

Neither Matej Vydra or Jeff Hendrick had successful Burnley spells

For the heavy investments made to bring the duo to Turf Moor, Burnley fans would have been expecting a lot from them, and indeed, Sean Dyche would've been too.

But in truth, the moves never truly worked out, despite both on paper looking like they would.

Vydra was never particularly favoured by Dyche, and despite playing for Burnley for four seasons, never even reached 100 appearances.

Hendrick was certainly much more favoured and was used quite frequently, particularly in the 2017/18 season when he was a key component in a team that got into the Europa League, but as his Burnley spell went on his impact waned.

In the end, he was forced to play on the right wing at the end of his Burnley spell, and things were never going to work out from there.

The Clarets never did get £21.5m worth of value out of the duo, and it was almost certainly Derby who came out the better of the pair in these transfer deals.