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In fact he didn’t make his first league start for the Clarets until this season and he leaves having made a total of just 46 appearances in all competitions with only 9 of those starts. In those appearances he contributed six goals, three in the league and three in the Worthington Cup.
The lack of availability hasn’t helped his cause but he leaves with the Burnley fans split, with some suggesting he was just not good enough whilst others thought Stan had not given him a fair chance in the first team.
But it is all too late for that now and he returns to Greece for a fee that is believed to be 400,000 euros, or around £280,000. That may represent a loss but with the transfer market having collapsed we can perhaps think ourselves fortunate to have received as much as that, if indeed the figures are correct. There is also a sell on clause added should he be sold in the future by Panathinaikos.
So the news we brought you earlier in the week, denied at the time by the club, has proved to be correct and again the squad is reduced in size.
Burnley Chairman Barry Kilby offered his best wishes to Papadopoulos and added, "There were essentially three reasons for the sale. The first is that the money can be spent by Stan in continuing to build his team for next season.
"Dimi would also be away a lot of the time next season with his commitment to the Greece’s Olympic team and he would also be out of contract at the end of his contract and he could have just walked away then."
It is difficult to argue with any of those three reasons and although still under 23 this time next year it would have been difficult to demand much in the way of compensation.
Overall this has to be considered an excellent piece of business by Burnley Football Club to get money for a player who clearly would not have featured much yet again next season.