Lowton swaps claret and blue for claret and blue

Last updated : 22 June 2015 By Tony Scholes

There was speculation that Lowton might be the replacement for Kieran Trippier even before the ink had dried on his contract at Spurs and Clarets' boss Sean Dyche has moved quickly to capture the Chesterfield born 26-year-old Lowton.

He joins us after three years at Villa, for whom he signed from first club Sheffield United in a £3m deal.

Sheffield United was his first club and he progressed through the club's youth system, twice going out on loan before making the first team at Bramall Lane. The first of those loans was a local one to Sheffield FC in 2008 but he then spent time during the 2009/10 season with their partner club Ferencváros in Hungary where he played 18 games.

He returned to make his Football League debut in March 2010, coming on as a late substitute for Andy Taylor in a 1-1 draw at Cardiff and in the following month got his first start in a 3-0 win against Ipswich at Portman Road.

The 2010/11 season didn't get off to the best of starts. Again at Cardiff, he was this time in the starting line up on the opening day of the season. The game again ended 1-1 but this time Lowton was sent off in the first half by referee Peter Walton.

After serving his suspension he was limited to substitute appearances for a time and in the fourth of them scored his first Football League goal. He came on for Johnny Ertl with United trailing Burnley 2-1 but he'd been on the pitch for just six minutes when he netted that first goal to bring the score to 2-2 after we'd led 2-0. The game eventually ended 3-3.

That red card was one of two in his career and the goal was the first of ten league goals he netted for Sheffield United before moving to Aston Villa, becoming Paul Lambert's second signing for the club.

He was a virtual ever present in his first season at Villa. He started all but one game in what was his first ever season in the Premier League and scored two goals.

The first of those goals was in a 2-0 home win against Swansea but it is his second that remains a talking point amongst Villa fans.

It came at Stoke on 6th April 2013. Villa had led through an early goal from Gabriel Agbonlahor and retained that lead until Michael Kightly equalised for Stoke with ten minutes remaining.

Villa's reaction was to score two goals in the last three minutes. The second of them came from Christian Benteke but it was Lowton who restored the lead with the strike shown below.

 

He's certainly not been as regular in the team since, making 23 Premier League appearances in 2013/14 and just twelve last season, the last of which came in a 6-1 hammering at Southampton in May this year when he came on for Leandro Bacuna with the score already at 5-1.

With Bacuna and Alan Hutton both able to play at right back it left Lowton very much out of favour and new manager Tim Sherwood making him available for transfer.

There have been a number of suitors and for a while he looked destined to join Derby. They, instead, have opted to sign former Claret Chris Baird with Matt Lowton becoming a claret and blue of the East Lancashire variety on a three year deal as we build a squad ready for the 2015/16 Championship season.

 

Photograph shown by Ben Sutherland (Flickr: DSC00943) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons