County have signed centre-half Lewis Baines on loan from Fleetwood Town until the end of the season.
The 20-year-old has featured once for the Cod Army first team this season, coming on a substitute in the Checkatrade Trophy defeat at Bury. He recently returned from a one-month loan spell with top-of-the-table Chorley.
Lewis, a left-footed central defender, was handed a professional contract with Town in the summer of 2017 after impressing for the club’s under 18’s side. Last summer, the highly-rated defender signed a new two-year contract with Joey Barton’s team.
He had two successful loan spells last season at Bamber Bridge and Ashton United, with both clubs going on to secure promotion in their respective divisions.
Baines also made his senior debut last season for the Cod Army in the Checkatrade Trophy match at Carlisle United, where Town went on to win 2-1.
He will be available for County at FC United tomorrow afternoon and has been earmarked as a replacement for Jamie Stott who returns to Oldham after tomorrow’s game at Broadhurst Park.County boss Jim Gannon said: “We’re delighted to be able to add Lewis, he’s a six-foot-three left-sided centre-back, a good footballer, good defender, another really good young player that’s maturing well from experience in non-league, so I’m delighted to add him and I think he’s a perfect replacement for Jamie.
“We’ve got some good options, such as Dan Cowan and Jordan Keane, as well as some good young lads maturing behind the scenes, but psychologically I felt that we needed to have another defender so we weren’t disrupting other elements of the team.
“We had a situation when Jamie got injured on the Friday before the Curzon game and the team was playing so well that we didn’t want to disrupt it, so we just put Dan Cowan straight in and he stepped up brilliantly against Curzon and then Yeovil, so we never needed to shuffle the team around, but the problem using Dan there is that it means you’re down to four defenders, so we were conscious that we needed to bring in another defender to replace Jamie, hopefully with the qualities to just seamlessly move into the side, and take over that role.
“I thought it was really important to have a good left-footed defender who can play left side of a two or a three and, if an emergency situation arose, could possibly play at left-back, one of the areas where we haven’t got a lot of depth so he’s a perfect signing for us at this stage.
“Alan Lord flagged Lewis up to me last season when he was having a really good influence at Bamber Bridge and then finished the season at Ashton United and was part of their promotion run.
“I’ve monitored his progress ever since so we’re delighted to have him, we know a lot about him and we’ve seen his growth over the last year and we’re looking forward to working with Lewis and helping him further with his development.
“Joey Barton has given a lot of young players an opportunity at Fleetwood, so this lad’s being considered for the future, but as everyone knows it’s great for these young players to go out and play men’s football. I like Lewis because he’s done the U19s, U20s, U23s, but he’s gone out to Bamber Bridge, done great there, showed he can play men’s football, which has helped strengthen him up.
“He’s then gone to Ashton United, the next level up, and every six months he’s stepping up a level and hopefully we can help him step up to the next level again.
“It’s a great opportunity for him, with the opportunities that are here in terms of our crowd, and we like to think we put on good training sessions, so he’ll pick up things from us and the team and it’ll be a great experience for him – we hope it’s a seamless transition, he can step in for Jamie and we can keep moving forward with that consistency and strength that we have.
“I think people will be really impressed with Lewis, he’s physically capable as a centre-half, he’s 6’3, we’ve seen him play at our level in the last month, and he’s competed with mobile players as well as big physical players.
“He looks capable in the air and on the ground, he’s a footballer and he wants to build and we like to develop play from the back. He looks a good footballer and a good defender, two great attributes in the player that we want.
“What a perfect opportunity to come in this week, with a full week leading up to the Harrogate game (FA Trophy) which is a nice game to bed him in and get him used to the players and what we’re doing, with two weeks before the next league game, so I’m really pleased with the signing and the extra bit of time we’ve got.”
During his recent loan spell at Chorley, Lewis started five games, winning three, drawing one and losing one.
