When you talk about "selling their best player", I assume you mean Charlie Austin. Austin was sold to QPR on August 1 2013, and so the transfer fee received is not in the 2012-13 accounts.
And who has claimed that they had a "shoestring budget"? Of course a wage bill of 15million is a heck of a...
Burnley are a team that had a lower than average wage bill in a season when they were still receiving parachute payments. The following season they finished 2nd in the table (we will have to wait and see how their wage bill compared with other clubs, but on the face of it they certainly didn't...
In 2012-13 (the latest season for which financial data is available) they had only the 14th highest wage bill (take a look at this thread that El Presidente started a couple of days ago - Full revenue, wage bill and losses for Championship clubs 2012-13).
So in comparative terms, yes, they...