Shropshire Star

Shrewsbury Town capture loan signing of highly-rated Everton defender Matthew Pennington

Shrewsbury Town have completed their second signing of the day with a loan deal for Everton defender Matthew Pennington.

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The 26-year-old central defender has played Premier League football for the Toffees and his most recent loan spells have been with Leeds United, Ipswich Town and Hull City in the Championship.

Town boss Steve Cotterill has already brought in lively Blackburn attacker Harry Chapman on loan and the deal to bring Pennington to Montgomery Waters Meadow marks the second eye-catching capture of New Year's Eve.

Cotterill said that Pennington offers crucial competition for places at centre-half and on the right of the defence, where his side are short. He will spend the rest of the campaign with Town having made 68 Championship appearances over the last three seasons.

Shrewsbury will be the seventh loan of the Warrington-born defender's career, having also spent time at Tranmere, Coventry and Walsall earlier in his career.

Pennington, who made his full Everton debut in 2015, signed a new deal with the Merseysiders under Marco Silva in 2018, taking him until the end of the current campaign.

He has made seven Premier League appearances with his parent club, across the 2015/16 and 2016/17 campaigns, in which he broke into the first team. Pennington scored an equaliser in the Merseyside derby at Anfield in a 3-1 defeat in April 2017.

Cotterill said: "Matthew wants to play games and he has experience in the Championship. He's a good type that will get along well with our dressing room – I don't have any worries about him integrating.

"We are quite light in the central defensive area and at right back. I felt it was an area we needed to address. Matthew can definitely fulfil that. He can play right-side centre back, left-side centre back and in the middle. Anywhere in the three, he fits."

The defender will provide stern competition to Ro-Shaun Williams, Ethan Ebanks-Landell and Aaron Pierre. The former England under-19 international has made more than 100 league appearances during loan spells throughout his career.