Chesterfield sign Sheffield United youngster on loan

Sheffield United U23's Jordan Hallam has a shot against Hull City U23's.

Hallam (20) came through the Blades academy and made his debut for the club in a 4-2 EFL Trophy win over Grimsby Town in November 2016.

It is his only senior appearance to date for the club, but Spireites assistant manager Adrian Whitbread believes the youngster can replicate his Under 23s goalscoring form in senior football.

“We’ve watched him a couple of times each and he’s a goalscorer.

“He’s a young lad, gets in the box and when we’ve seen him he’s scored goals.

“We’ve seen an awful lot of Under 23s games recently and you come back to whether or not they could do it in the National League.

“But goalscorers are goalscorers, they can score goals in any team.”

Hallam will go into Chesterfield’s squad for tomorrow’s game at Eastleigh, should the paperwork be cleared in time.

His arrival explains Blades manager Chris Wilder’s presence at the Proact last weekend.

Whitbread said: “Chrissy Wilder is a good friend of the manager, he was here at the game on Saturday and had a chat about him.

“We just felt it was great that they’re willing to loan players out to us and we think it’ll be great for the player himself.

“He’s excited to get in there and start training.”

Town now have seven strikers on the books, although Zavon Hines is a doubt for tomorrow game due to his ongoing knee issue.

It means there’s lots of competition for places up front and Whitbread welcomes it, particularly in light of how few goals have been scored in league action this season.

“We’re not resting on our laurels with the squad we’ve got to think it’s good enough - it’s been good enough for the last two months without getting the wins.

“But we want to score more goals.

“If that player, Jordan Hallam comes in, proves worthy of it and makes the other players raise their game, that’s great for us.

“We just felt he would be a good acquisition for our squad, knowing that possibly we haven’t scored enough goals up until Tuesday night.”

Hallam scored twice in a 10-game stint for Southport on loan and also spent time with Norwegian second tier team Viking FK.