Clarets and Bolton in three player loan deal

Last updated : 01 September 2003 By Tony Scholes

Delroy Facey
Nobody was expecting too much in the way of transfer business at Turf Moor today, in fact nothing was expected until later in the week. But news broke this afternoon of a triple deal that Stan has done with Sam Allardyce at Bolton.

Glen Little, an ever present this season, departs on loan for the second time this year and now gets the opportunity to perform on the Premiership stage. He has moved to Horwich and the Reebok Stadium for one month and could make a Premiership bow on 13th September when Bolton are at home to Middlesbrough.

There is no indication as yet as to whether there is any more in this move than one month but if Glen was to impress then maybe Allardyce would want to make the move permanent.

Coming in the other direction are forward Delroy Facey and midfielder Gareth Farrelly. Again both are for one month but both are with a view to a permanent move at the end of the month’s loan.

Huddersfield born Facey started his career with his home town club and made his debut for them as a substitute in a First Division game against Portsmouth back in March 1997 when still 16 years of age. A couple of weeks later he made his first start in a home win against Sheffield United with Tom Cowan scoring the winner in a 2-1 victory.

After six years at the McAlpine Stadium he chose to move on at the end of his contract and was snapped up by Bolton. He had played in 75 league games for Huddersfield, 40 of them starts, and had scored 15 goals.

In just over a year at Bolton he has found it difficult to break into the first team and has to date made just one Premiership start along with nine substitute appearances and scored two goals after coming on as a sub.

Last season he got some more first team action during a loan spell at Bradford City where he made six appearances, scoring once against Franchise, before returning to Bolton.

He is very popular with the fans at the Reebok who believe that he should have been given more opportunities. He has been involved in the first team this season and came on as a sub in their opening defeat at Manchester United when he replaced Stylianos Giannakopoulos.

The now 23 year-old striker or winger will be hoping to get that for at least a month at Burnley and he is yet another of recent signings who comes with tremendous pace. He has played previously at Burnley, he was in the Huddersfield side back in 2001, a game the Clarets won 1-0 with a Steve Davis goal.

Gareth Farrelly
Joining him is central midfielder Gareth Farrelly another who is on the fringe of the Bolton squad. The 28 year-old Republic of Ireland international first arrived in England when Ron Atkinson signed him for Aston Villa from Home Farm in 1992.

He was never able to establish himself at Villa Park and made only eight Premiership appearances for them. During this time he went out on loan to Rotherham and finally left Villa for good when he became one of Howard Kendall and Adrian Heath’s first signings at Everton in the summer of 1997.

He won a place almost immediately in the Everton side but fell out of favour when Joe Royle came in and after two and a half years at Goodison he signed for Bolton after an initial loan period.

He’s played a total of 74 league games for the Trotters and like Facey played against us in our first season back in Division One. Farrelly was in the Bolton side when we drew on the opening day of that season and also when they beat us on the Turf just before Christmas.

Last season saw him back on loan at Rotherham at a time when the Clarets were linked with him and he played a further six games for the Millers. In fact his last first team action was for Rotherham in April of this year in a 1-1 draw against Leicester.

Both of them will be added to the squad for Saturday’s game and who knows if players return from injury we might have more than enough for the bench.

We would like to wish Glen all the best at Bolton and of course to both Delroy Facey and Gareth Farrelly whilst they are Clarets.