Sakiri not for Burnley

Last updated : 25 July 2005 By Tony Scholes

Sakiri joined the Clarets in time to play at Accrington last Wednesday and trained with the first team squad before playing the first 48 minutes of the home game against Malaga on Saturday.

However, there was considerable doubt as to whether he would be travelling to Austria although assistant manager Dave Kevan said that they would be deciding immediately after the Malaga game.

It all looked clear to me in the way that manager Steve Cotterill shook his hand when he came off and I do believe the decision had been made then. This morning it has been made official, Sakiri has left and according to our manager he has another option although we would have liked to have kept him longer.

“I think Artim has something else agreed,” Steve said this morning from Burnley’s training base at Obertraun in Austria. “He has another option open to him and we wanted to look at him over a longer period.

“He only arrived just before the Accrington Stanley game and four days is not enough to make a full assessment over his fitness and everything else. I was not prepared to do that.”