STEVE Cotterill has ruled out the possibility of allowing his Burnley players to leave Turf Moor while he operates a wafer-thin squad.

The Clarets boss made no last-dash loan signings ahead of tomorrow's Championship clash against Birmingham.

While no fresh faces made their way to Burnley before yesterday's 5pm deadline, Cotterill had no intention of weakening his 20-man squad, which is the division's smallest.

Cotterill revealed that enquiries have been made for his players, but he cannot risk letting anyone leave the Clarets on a temporary or long-term basis, especially with a busy fixture schedule lying in wait.

"We've got Frank Sinclair suspended this weekend and John McGreal is still on the injured list," said Cotterill.

"So all we have is 18 players, of which 16 get used.

"We won't be letting anybody go anywhere, whether it's on loan or not because we have to look after what we've got here.

"We just haven't got enough bodies. There is no point my saying we need to strengthen and we need an extra body or two and then loan somebody out, especially not with this time period coming up."