Former Clarets on the move

24 January 2012 10:38
Yesterday saw two former Burnley players of recent years on the move as one swapped Aston Villa for Leicester City and another said his goodbyes to Preston North End.

As predicted over the weekend, Leicester boss Nigel Pearson swooped to land Aston Villa's Nathan Delfouneso on a month's loan and he went straight into Leicester's squad last night for their 2-0 win at Southampton, coming on as a substitute for Jermaine Beckford with a quarter of an hour to go.

Delfouneso made eleven appearances for Burnley last season whilst on loan from Villa. He made his debut against Hull City, then managed by Pearson, and scored the only goal of the game to give Burnley a third successive win.

He didn't net again for the Clarets in those games, seven of which were starts, and that goal at the KC Stadium remains his last league goal although he did score in this season's Carling Cup for Aston Villa against Hereford United.

His opportunities have been limited at Villa Park with just one Premier League start since August and, with players such as Gabriel Agbonlahor, Darren Bent and Robbie Keane at his disposal, Alex McLeish has opted to let him go out on loan to get some games in the Championship.

That's positive news for Delfouneso but the news was not so good for David Unsworth whose time at Preston North End came to an end yesterday.

Unsworth, who has twice been caretaker manager, has been at Preston as a coach since September 2009 when Alan Irvine appointed him as development coach. Apart from his two stints in caretaker charge he's been first team coach under the management of both Darren Ferguson and Phil Brown but with latest appointment of Graham Westley it was inevitable there would be some departures.

Westley has brought in his own team with Unsworth's place taken by Dino Maamria who was, just over a decade ago, appointed as Burnley's Ethnics Minorities Development Officer.

Preston thanked Unsworth for his services as they announced that he had left the club with immediate effect as part of the ongoing restructure of the first team management set up.

Source: FOOTYMAD