Clarets winger Paul Smith has joined Oldham Athletic on loan as part of the mini-exodus from Turf Moor.

Smith was added to the quartet of Chris Brass, Alan Lee, Chris Scott and Michael Devenney who have also completed temporary moves.

Chris Brass has joined former Clarets team-mates Tony Parks and Gerry Harrison at Halifax Town and will make his debut tomorrow at Torquay, where he made his League bow as a loan player six seasons ago.

Brass has dropped down two divisions for the opportunity of regular first-team football for a short spell.

Lee's move to Rotherham may be a longer one, however, as the Second Division side are keen to recruit the former Aston Villa striker on a permanent basis.

"I hope to agree a fee over the weekend and hopefully he will come in and set things on fire for us," said Millers' boss Ronnie Moore, who will hand Lee a debut at Stoke tomorrow.

Things may not be that far progressed though, with Clarets boss Stan Ternent saying: "I've loaned him out and if he does well we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Just because I have sent them out on loan doesn't mean I have washed my hands of them."

Scott and Devenney have joined Conference club Leigh RMI and Ternent believes all will benefit from a taste of first-team football.

"Teams are playing a couple of times a week and I can't offer them that with the way the reserve fixtures are. It will do them good," he added. Lee, Brass and Smith, who is set to make his Latics debut at Bournemouth tomorrow, haven't figured in the Clarets' first-team this season with the latter pair, two of Burnley's longest serving players, also suffering with injury problems during the first few weeks of the campaign.

Their departures, for the time being at least, leaves squad numbers down at Turf Moor, but suggestions that the young Leeds United pair of Kevin Dixon and Tony Hackworth will bolster numbers appear to be wide of the mark.

However, the Clarets will be boosted for tomorrow's trip to bottom-of-the-table Huddersfield by the return of Glen Little, although Paul Weller is out.

The trip to the McAlpine Stadium will mean a return to his former club for Andy Payton, who scored 19 goals for the Terriers in 1996/97 before new boss Peter Jackson swapped him for Clarets striker Paul Barnes the following season after Payton had recovered from a hernia problem.

"After my first game back in the reserves they said Burnley had come in for me and they were willing to let me go. I was surprised but in the long run I wanted to play for Burnley and I was quite happy about it.

"I've got no bad feelings and I've got nothing to prove. I was top-scorer when I was there and my scoring record at Burnley is good," said Payton, who will be looking for his first League goal of the campaign in only his second start.

Meanwhile, Terriers manager Steve Bruce is keen to put one over the club who turned him away after three-and-a-half years on schoolboys forms at Turf Moor. "They said I wasn't big enough or strong enough and that's a laugh now because I've got a weight problem and can't keep the pounds off," laughed Bruce.

"The manager at the time (Jimmy Adamson) obviously didn't think I was a good enough but they were happy times. They'll probably shout Bruce is a reject, but I don't think that many people know about it."

Burnley from: Crichton, Weller, Briscoe, Thomas, Cox, Davis, Little, Ball, Payton, Cooke, Cook, Gray, Branch, Mellon, Jepson, Mullin, Maylett, Armstrong, Michopoulos.

Huddersfield from: Vaesen, Kozluk, Lucketti, Dyson, Armstrong, Gorre, Irons, Beech, Thornley, Smith, Gallen, Heary, Gray, Kyle, Sellars, Facey, Baldry, Margetson.

Burnley's youth team are away to Bury tomorrow.