Loan Watch: Payne scores first professional goal
As the festive football schedule has kicked into gear, Southampton’s loan players enjoyed a successful week that included a first senior goal and returns to form across Europe. All this and more in our latest Loan Watch…
In midweek, Lewis Payne starred for Newport County as they breezed past National League side Barnet in an FA Cup second round replay, reaching the third round with a 4-1 win.
Payne opened the scoring with a well-taken finish after just six minutes; the 19-year-old raced forwards from right-back and arrived at the far post to crash home his first goal in professional football.
He followed that up with another full 90 minutes, his ninth consecutive start for The Exiles, at the weekend in a 1-1 draw against Grimsby Town, which means that Newport have lost just once in their last four League Two matches.
Outside of the EFL, academy goalkeeping duo Josh McNamara and Jack Bycroft had contrasting results against difficult opponents above them in the table.
McNamara helped St Albans City to an impressive 2-1 win over playoff-chasing Chelmsford City in the National League South as they moved up to 15th in the league.
Up in the National League, Bycroft couldn’t prevent a 2-1 defeat against Boreham Wood for his Oxford City side on his seventh-consecutive game since signing on loan.
Elsewhere, up in Scotland, Thierry Small earned back-to-back starts with St Mirren after impressing last week in his first start of the season.
The full-back played 68 minutes in St Mirren’s goalless draw, meaning Small has kept consecutive clean sheets since returning to the starting line-up.
In Europe, Duje Ćaleta-Car also made back-to-back starts for Lyon since returning to favour for the Ligue 1 side.
He kept a second successive clean sheet as well, as Lyon beat AS Monaco 1-0 to back up last week’s 3-0 triumph over Toulouse with the Croatian playing the full 90 in both games.
Finally, Romain Perraud made his second-longest substitute cameo of the season for Nice, playing half an hour in their 3-1 defeat against Le Havre.
Main image: Lewis Payne (Photo: Newport County)
