{"id":541592,"date":"2020-01-26T06:49:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T11:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=541592"},"modified":"2020-01-26T06:49:14","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T11:49:14","slug":"burton-albion-sell-top-scorer-liam-boyce-to-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/01\/26\/burton-albion-sell-top-scorer-liam-boyce-to-hearts\/","title":{"rendered":"Burton Albion Sell Top Scorer Liam Boyce to Hearts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>League One promotion hunters <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/category\/league-football\/league12\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Burton Albion<\/a> have sold top scorer Liam Boyce to Scottish Premiership side Hearts. The striker leaves for an undisclosed fee and returns to Scottish Football after two-and-half years with the Brewers.<\/p>\n<h2>Burton Albion Sell Striker Liam Boyce to Hearts<\/h2>\n<h3>The Deal<\/h3>\n<p>Burton announced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burtonalbionfc.co.uk\/news\/2020\/january\/2501-boyce\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via their website<\/a> they had sold their record signing. Boyce departs the Pirelli Stadium after two-and-a-half years with the club. Burton have received an undisclosed fee for the Northern Ireland international.<\/p>\n<p>Boyce arrived in 2017 as Burton\u2019s record signing when they were in the Championship. The striker scored 22 goals in 78 league games for the Brewers. His time with the Brewers was blighted with injuries meaning he couldn\u2019t ever get a consistent run of games.<\/p>\n<p>Boyce had been attracting interest from several clubs due to his contract expiring in the summer. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/sunderland\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sunderland<\/a> were the leading the pack of League One clubs chasing him but ultimately Hearts won the race.<\/p>\n<p>The striker joins the Scottish Premiership\u2019s basement club. Hearts are enduring a miserable season finding themselves cut adrift at the bottom of the table. Boyce arrives tasked with keeping Hearts in the league.<\/p>\n<p>Burton wanted the best possible fee for the striker and while there wasn\u2019t any indication Boyce wouldn\u2019t sign a new deal, they have got the best deal for them.<\/p>\n<h3>What Was Said<\/h3>\n<p>Speaking to the Burton website about Boyce\u2019s departure, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burtonalbionfc.co.uk\/news\/2020\/january\/2501-boyce\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">manager Nigel Clough said<\/a>: \u201cWe have reluctantly accepted the bid from Hearts &#8211; with four or five months left on his contract, there wasn\u2019t much choice for us, really.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult when a player has a few months left, difficult for the player and the club, as he would go on a free in the summer so we have to make a decision on whether we take some money now for him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe thank Liam for his two-and-a-half years of service with us, and we\u2019re delighted that we signed him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe got the injury after the first few weeks which was a big blow for him and us, but he\u2019s been a very good player for us, and we wish him all the best for the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe already have a replacement in Lucas Akins straight away, and we\u2019ve brought in two forward players in Joe Powell and Jamie Murphy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can make Lucas our number one striker now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"i1Cjgo3SSuhPqUBwMN8Q0Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1087687954\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'i1Cjgo3SSuhPqUBwMN8Q0Q',sig:'luQsBQhYM1-2yiFn7SE3My297GmEI8eykAIsObpcwAo=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1087687954',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>League One promotion hunters Burton Albion have sold top scorer Liam Boyce to Scottish Premiership side Hearts. The striker leaves for an undisclosed fee and returns to Scottish Football after two-and-half years with the Brewers. Burton Albion Sell Striker Liam Boyce to Hearts The Deal Burton announced via their website they had sold their record [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3241,"featured_media":541598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"1580040000","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,32,30,28],"tags":[408,168,4737,4736,136],"class_list":["post-541592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league12","category-league-football","category-news","category-transfers","tag-burton-albion","tag-efl","tag-heart-of-midlothian","tag-liam-boyce","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}