NATHAN Delfouneso will be handed an extended trial at Blackburn Rovers after scoring in Saturday’s friendly at Oldham Athletic - but Jeffrey Sarpong and Maic Sema have departed.

Delfouneso left Blackpool at the end of last season and has just returned to England after a trial with Dutch second tier club Go Ahead Eagles.

MORE TOP STORIES:

But the former Aston Villa and England under 21 international striker, who had a brief loan spell with Burnley in 2011, impressed boss Gary Bowyer as he scored one goal and set up another - despite only coming on at half time in Rovers’ 2-0 friendly win at Oldham.

Delfouneso, 24, will now remain with Rovers and attempt to earn a contract at the club. He is expected to feature again in tomorrow’s friendly at Bury.

Bowyer said: “He only came in and met the lads on Saturday morning, he’s been away on trial somewhere else and he came in and I thought he did ever so well.

“It was his first 45 minutes for us and he got himself on the end of a fantastic cross.

“Nathan had a great part in the second goal as well - running on to Tommy’s throw, a great bit of play and then a finish from Craig Conway.

“Nathan’s going to spend a couple of weeks with us and we’ll have a closer look at him and go from there, but he’s done himself no harm whatsoever with that goal.

“From a starting point, he’s scored one and had a big hand in the second one.

“He knows a couple of the lads through the England under 21s, Lowey and Steeley, and he’s living locally so it all made sense.

“We’ve provided him with the opportunity, we’ve just got to see him kick on now.”

Ghanaian winger Sarpong netted for Rovers in their 2-0 win at Tranmere Rovers on Friday night, in a game in which Swedish wide man Sema hit the crossbar.

Both had been on trial with Rovers but Bowyer has confirmed that the duo have now departed without being offered deals.

“We had a chat with them on Saturday morning,” he said. “Obviously our places are limited and I had to make a call on that. They’ve both been great lads but we’ve decided that we’re not going to push that any further.

“Obviously the restrictions we’re under make it very difficult in terms of the numbers we can bring in, so the ones we do bring in we’ve got to be really sure they can go and have a massive impact on the first team.

“It enabled us to bring in Nathan and have a good look at him.”

Ben Marshall missed Saturday’s match because of illness.

“He walked into the training ground on Friday and didn’t look the greatest,” Bowyer said. “He turned up on Saturday morning and wanted to try to give it a go, but he’s not eaten for 48 hours so we made that call.”