Ex-Claret Premier League players on the move
Two players who featured for Burnley in our first Premier League season in 2009/10 have moved in the last 24 hours with David Nugent swapping Middlesbrough for Derby County and Chris Eagles leaving Accrington Stanley.
Nugent has struggled for game time at Middlesbrough since they won promotion to the Premier League as runners-up to Burnley. He’s made only four substitute appearances this season alongside one start in the League Cup and he’s had no first team action since mid-September when he came on for Emilio Nsue in a 3-1 defeat at Everton.
Having joined Middlesbrough at the start of the 2015/16 season, he scored eight league goals for them and his last league start came in the crucial 1-1 draw against Brighton on the final day of the season, playing the first 80 minutes before being replaced by Jordan Rhodes.
The 31-year-old Nugent, who scored six times for Burnley in that first Premier League season, including a brace on his home debut against Sunderland, the second of which is shown in the photograph, signed a contract with the Rams yesterday until the end of the 2018/19 season.
It appears he has a similar record scoring goals against Derby as he does against Burnley and said after completing the signing: “I’ve scored a few goals against the club in the past; sometimes you have teams that you always seem to score against and Derby has been one of them. “I’m looking forward to putting the Derby County shirt on and scoring goals for the club now.”
Despite now being within one place of the play-off positions, only relegation threatened Wigan have scored less goals than Derby who have been desperate in trying to get Chris Martin back from Fulham where he is currently on loan. Nugent could just be the perfect signing for them.
During his season at Burnley, Chris Eagles played alongside him but things aren’t going quite so well for one of his former team mates who has been released by Accrington Stanley at the end of his half season deal.
Since making his debut on the opening day of the League Two season, coming on as a substitute, he’s made only six league appearances for Stanley which includes only two starts. Like Nugent, Eagles is aged 31, but it might be difficult for him to find a new club having been released by all of Blackpool, Bury and Accrington in the last two years. His last league outing was as a substitute in a 1-1 home draw against Cheltenham in early October.
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