Sligo Rovers have made another addition to the 2017 squad with striker Jonah Ayunga signing today.
Ayunga signs on loan from Brighton and Hove Albion for the duration of the 2017 SSE Airtricity League season.
The 19-year-old from Dorset began his career at local club Dorchester Town and impressed with seven goals in 31 games to begin his career.
That lead to Championship club Brighton and Hove Albion signing him to a two-and-a-half-year contract in February 2016.
He has been a regular with the club’s under-23 team in the Premier League under-23 league so far this season.
Ayunga also appeared for Brighton in the Football League Trophy in October, playing as they advanced past Stevenage.
In August of last year Rovers’ fifth new signing was called into a Kenyan national team squad.
Dave Robertson says he is delighted to complete his fifth new signing for 2017 and bring in his second new forward in little over a week.
Robertson first spoke about the variety of strengths that Jonah Aynuga will bring to Rovers:
“He is a player that will bring physicality to our attacking options and also extra goalscoring. He is a centre forward that is very strong with pace and power. He is a good finisher and he has scored goals regularly. He was bought by Brighton last year after experiencing senior football with Dorchester. He scored a lot of goals than and when you do that it will attract attention. The reports of how he has been doing with Brighton have been very, very good. I am delighted to be bringing him here.”
Having brought in Mathew Stevens from Peterborough this month to add to his attacking weapons which already includes Raff Cretaro and Mikey Place the Rovers manager is now happy with the options he has up front:
“He does now give us real competition for places up front. What he also gives us is something different to out tactical capability. We will come up against different team with different styles and to deal with that we will need a real versatility. Having competition in the squad is very important and I think we have that throughout the squad now. We will have players competing to wear the shirt every week. I am really happy with the strikeforce that we have got here now.”
Robertson discussed where he currently sees his squad with just over one month to the kick-off to the new season with defence his next priority to strengthen:
“We are not far away. Our next focus will definitely be to get another defender in. We need someone to come in who will be able to provide cover in that area. We currently have five defenders in the squad so I would like to add one more. That would be enough defensively.”
