Gaffer talks about new signing from West Bromwich Albion
Shrewsbury Town have confirmed the signing of Tyler Roberts on loan until the end of the season.Tyler, 18, joins from West Bromwich Albion and becomes Paul Hurst’s fourth signing of the January Transfer Window.
Roberts played 22 games for fellow League One side Oxford United earlier this season and Paul has been impressed by what he has seen from the Wales Under-19 International.
“I’ve watched him a few times this season and Chris has seen him as well and we were impressed”, Paul told ShrewsWeb.
“He’s been on loan at Oxford so he knows exactly what the league’s about. He obviously impresses when we watched him.”
“He’s a young player that I think has got a big future ahead of him, but thanks to West Brom for allowing him to come out and hopefully we can help him develop his game and gain that experience to help his career.”
“He’s a forward player that’s got very good ability. He can score goals, which is something he’s done in his youth team days and hopefully he can add that to our squad.”
Roberts can play in a number of forward positions and Hurst believes he will add something different compared with the other strikers at the club.
“He’s got pace, athleticism and he’s a strong boy”, said Hurst.
“The physical side doesn’t faze him or concern him. He can play wide, but realistically we’ve brought him in as a striker. He’s got the ability where he can play as a number 10, he can play as a number 9 and probably all the bits in between that.”
“We’ve brought him to be involved as a striker, but that’s not to say that, depending on the scenario in games, if you want to get as many attacking players on as possible he could maybe be one that could go a bit wider because he’s got the ability on the ball, but overall we’ve brought him in to play down the middle.”
With League One experience under his belt, the aim for Tyler now is to get more game time and Paul admitted that he will be involved against Oldham at the weekend.
“He had a lot of appearances at Oxford albeit from the bench and he scored in a couple of cup games”, Paul continued.
“Here the challenge is to get more minutes and hopefully that will be the case. It’s nice that it’s not totally unknown in terms of the level and its credit to him that he’s wanting to come out and get games again.”
“Realistically as we stand we’ve got Freddie and we’ve got Louis who picked up and injury the other day, but that’s it currently. AJ’s obviously taking time, so Tyler will go straight into it.”
“Whether that’s starting or whether it’s coming off the bench we will see how quickly he settles in, but he’s come here to play and I think he will get that opportunity.”
Having only turned 18 last week, Tyler may be young, but Paul believes, that despite his age, he is currently ahead of Town’s other youngsters.
“I think physically he’s ahead of the other lads”, said Paul.
“People develop at different rates. Without speaking badly of the two lads we’ve got in striking areas, Tyler at this moment in time is a long way ahead of those lads.”
“That’s not to say that in time our lads won’t end up contributing to this football club, but the right here, right now Tyler is ahead of those.”