Ade is a Claret again

Last updated : 01 January 2007 By Tony Scholes
He's never been able to establish himself in Neil Warnock's team and today, for the third time as Burnley manager, Steve Cotterill has done business with Warnock to bring the popular striker back to Turf Moor.

He's costing us just slightly more than he did when we bought him from today's opponents Stoke, the fee this time is £650,000 now and a further £100,000 in the summer. That means we've paid a total of £1.35 million for him, sold him for £1.75 million. That's damn good business, we've made a net profit of £400,000 and got the player.

Ade returns and will wear the same number 20 shirt that he wore when he first joined us and he's signed a deal that will take him to the end of the 2008/09 season.

Manager Steve Cotterill is delighted with the signing and said after completing the deal just hours after the window opened. “I'm absolutely delighted to bring Ade back as I'm sure the supporters and his team mates will be, both those that he left behind and the new ones he'll meet. He is a great character but he'll need to time to settle in because he hasn't played too much regular football in the last twelve months.

“To be honest everybody knew what I thought of Ade and his previous spell here and I just thought when we were looking around for what was available, both in terms of money and the player, he was the best, but we'll need to make sure we give him time to get up to speed.”

After the poor results recently the manager knew something was needed to help turn things round and added: “I would imagine, all in all, that this is just the kind of lift we needed at this moment in time, probably for Ade as well and we are just looking forward to welcoming him into the squad.”

The reaction from Burnley fans at this morning's news confirms Steve Cotterill's thoughts. It is just the lift we needed and I'm sure Burnley fans can't wait to see Ade back in Claret & Blue and scoring goals for Burnley.
Welcome back to the Turf Ade.