One In - One Out

One In - One Out
By TheLongside.co.uk
March 23 2006

Burnley have signed midfielder Alan Mahon from Wigan, in a day which has seen Gifton Noel-Williams join Brighton.

 One In - One Out

Transfer deadline day at Turf Moor has seen Steve Cotterill wheeling and dealing, with one player joining, and another leaving.

 

The player to join is midfielder Alan Mahon. Mahon will join the Clarets on loan until the end of the season, and it is another one of those deals which will see the 27-year-old join on a permanent basis in the summer. A three-year contract has been agreed with Mahon, with a fee £200,000 making its way to the JJB at the end of the season, not a bad outlay for a player who has previously played for Sporting Lisbon.

 

Mahon started his career at Tranmere Rovers before signing for the Lisbon giants in the summer of 2000. It was only a short stay for Mahon though on the Iberian peninsula before signing just five months later for our friends down the M65. After featuring in the Blackburn Rovers promotion winning side of 2000/01, Rovers stumped up £1.5m to bring Mahon back home to England.

 

After promotion to the Premiership, Mahon began to see himself frozen out at Ewood Park, culminating in loan moves to Ipswich and Cardiff. He did well in both loan spells before signing for Wigan Athletic in February 2004.

 

Mahon played a total of 39 games for the Latics, scoring an impressive 9 goals, and helping them to promotion to the Premiership last season. He'll be a very welcome addition to our midfield, a position in which we have looked particularly lacking in recent weeks.

 

Burnley boss Steve Cotterill had this to say on signing Mahon:

"We managed to sort out a deal with Wigan to take Alan Mahon until the end of the season, with an agreed permanent deal going ahead at the end of the season.

"We've agreed that and we're delighted to have him on board.

"It's been a mad rush to make sure we beat the 5.00pm deadline to get him signed in time and we're looking forward to having him in the squad hopefully for the next three and a bit years.

"I'd like to thank Paul Jewell for all his help with that. We've had a couple of good chats this week and I'd like to thank him very much for his help in assisting the transfer to go through pretty quickly."

Thursday afternoon also saw Gifton Noel-Williams join Brighton on loan until the end of the season. Brighton & Hove Albion have since said that the striker will join the Seagulls for a 'five-figure loan fee'. Cotterill had this to say on Gifton's departure:

"It's been a busy couple of weeks really with the transfer deadline. We've let Gifton go to Brighton and hopefully he'll go down there and do well."

There's sure to be a lot of talk on the new singing and Gifton leaving on our message board this evening, so why not pop in here and join in the discussion.