Rumour Mill- A Striker Still to Come?

This time last year all the talk was about whether Owen Coyle could wrestle Owls striker, Marcus Tudgay away from Sheffield Wednesday and sign him for the Clarets. The club made a £1.5 million offer for the player and it had been thought Tudgay would have been tempted to play in the Premier League rather than sign a new contract at Hillsborough with Sheffield Wednesday at the time still in the Championship.

In a fairly acrimonious exchange of words over a period of what seemed like weeks, the saga dragged on with the Owls accusing Burnley of unsettling the player after he had verbally agreed to sign a new contract for Sheffield Wednesday but appeared to now be stalling.

In the end, Sheffield Wednesday won and the player signed a new contract but things have certainly changed in a season.

Owen Coyle moved on in January to Bolton to be replaced by Brian Laws who had earlier been sacked by Sheffield Wednesday. By the end of the season, Brian Laws would see both clubs relegated with Wednesday in dire,financial straits having to now make ends meet in League One.

Brian Laws has already brought fomer Owls keeper, Lee Grant to Turf Moor and it was probably only a matter of time before he was linked to other former players.

One tabloid newspaper over the weekend suggested Laws could now be tempted to make a bid for 27 year old forward and winger, Marcus Tudgay and if true there is certainly an amount of irony in the speculation.

Is this lazy journalism or could there be an element of truth in the rumour? The suggestion is Laws is hoping to capitalise on the financial misfortunes of his former club and hook the striker for a bargain price, very much along the lines he did when signing Lee Grant last week.

Tudgay joined Sheffield Wednesday for an undisclosed fee in January 2006, signing a contract until 2010. He then signed a new four-year contract in June 2009.

Clarets fans though could well be asking if we need another striker with Iwelumo, Paterson, Thompson and Rodriguez fighting for a place in attack.

The media do seem to think we are still in the market for a striker. Speculation a fortnight ago was that we were still looking at Wigan forward, Jason Scotland along with Bristol City and Derby County.

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