Cotterill welcomes mid-season break

The Burnley team are set to make the most of their break between the Preston game on January 21 and the Brighton game on January 28 with boss Cotterill is whisking them away.

Clarets fans had been split on whether the club should have moved the Brighton game to the previous Saturday, but Cotterill said the players would benefit from their time away.

He said: "We've got a couple of big games now, Cardiff and Preston, before we take the players away on a break.

"We're going to do some training in a warmer climate and then land back at Gatwick so we can stay down there and play the Brighton game."

He added: "We had a break last year, but it was a little bit late so with the games that we've got left now, we wanted to see if we could get a break and get some warm weather training done to then kick on with the rest of the season.

"January is probably a flat month. Everybody has Christmas and New year and I think the players have worked hard over that time.

"With the Brighton game we'll have had four games out of the last five so it's been a tough run for us and that's why we've had to have that break now and hopefully that will kick us on for the last couple months of the season."

Meanwhile, a Football League report has revealed Burnley have spent a total of £163,900 on agents' fees in the last six months of 2005.

That figure compares with a sum of £55,000 in the same period in 2004.

The Clarets were involved in a total of 27 transfer deals or new registrations, nine of which were loans.

Leeds were the biggest spenders on agents' fees with £576,800 - which is just under a million less than the same period in 2006.

Neighbours Preston paid just £80,300 to agents with Crewe paying no money at all for the services of agents.

In the Championship as a whole from July 1 to December 31 2005, a total of 657 player transactions took place, of which 136 involved the use of agents and a total of £3,741, 886 was paid for their services.