BURY today swooped to beef up their strikeforce with a bargain £40,000 deal for Huddersfield Town's Paul Barnes.

Shakers boss Neil Warnock has been on the trail of the 30-year-old for several weeks and was quoted £250,000 for the former York City ace marksman six weeks ago.

The deal was expected to go through this afternoon and it represents an astute piece of work by Warnock who is getting his man for a knock-down fee which will be paid in £10,000 instalments for every 10 games he plays.

Barnes was one of the players who Huddersfield offered in the £700,000 plus two players deal for Shakers centre half Chris Lucketti which broke down when the player turned down the Yorkshire club's personal terms.

After scoring just one goal in their last five games, Bury are desperate for more firepower and hope that Barnes, a free scoring front man during many successful years at York City, will be able to come up with the goods to help preserve Gigg Lane's First Division status.

Warnock said today: "He scored a hat-trick in the reserves the other night and I think he's looking forward to coming and scoring a few goals."

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