Loan players doing well

Last updated : 17 January 2006 By Tony Scholes

For Lafferty, it has been a superb start at Darlington. He’s scored twice in his first two games for the League Two club and has settled in well. “I wanted to come out and gain first team experience and I think I’ve picked the right club to come to because everyone has been brilliant,” Kyle said.

“Hopefully I can repay them by scoring goals and getting them results. On Saturday I felt welcome on the way to the match, the lads were great to me and it has just been brilliant and they have helped me to settle in really well.”

It was a late winner he scored on his home debut for the Quakers and Steve Cotterill is more than happy to see him playing for Darlington right now. “He’s now going to endure some of the good pressures that I want him to have, with people expecting him to score goals and play well,” said Steve. “I would rather him have gone out on loan there than be playing and enjoying the youth cup game the other night, because the experience there will be excellent for him.”

Regarding the goals, Steve added, “We are delighted with it and it is just what we wanted Kyle to do. He needs to go out there and play football. The mental side is different for him, even when he’s played for us because there is nothing expected of him here.

“Now he’s made a rod for his own back because he’s started with a goal and the Darlington fans will expect that off him every week, and rightly so.”

If Kyle’s doing well and has settled in at Darlington then so has Marc Pugh, who is back at Kidderminster for a second spell of work experience. Pughy is in the first team for the Aggborough club and said, “It’s nice to be back and playing first team football again, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to handled playing youth team football again for the rest of the year.

“It’s good to be playing again at such a high level and the experience is already doing me a lot of good. Training has been good, the team played well in my first game back at Woking, and the atmosphere is great around the place.

“I want to keep on playing well and performing for Kidderminster and I’m enjoying myself at the moment. But where the future is concerned, I’m just taking it game by game. The Burnley manager says he wants me to come out on loan to play some first team football and hopefully, if I impress, it won’t be long before I can push into the first team at Burnley.

“I’m confident in my own abilities and I’m still very young. If I can keep on doing well here, who knows where it might lead.”