Wilson rewarded for patience with Darby arrival (From Swindon Advertiser)

Wilson rewarded for patience with Darby arrival

8:20am Friday 12th March 2010 in

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DANNY Wilson has repeatedly preached patience over his transfer dealings, insisting any newcomer to the County Ground must possess the quality to improve Town’s squad.

And the boss was rewarded yesterday when he landed a youngster on loan until the end of the season with experience in both the Premier League and Champions League this season.

Full-back Stephen Darby is so highly rated at Liverpool that the 21-year-old was tied down to a new three-year deal last summer and featured for the Anfield giants against both PSV Eindhoven and Fiorentina back in December.

And while there were plenty of other players Wilson could have moved for to strengthen his ranks, the boss was determined to hold out for the best he could get.

“You have a process of elimination in lots of areas, but you don’t get into a situation where you are not happy with bringing a player in, but you will bring him in anyway just to fill your numbers up,” he explained.

“That would be counter-productive to what you want.

“But from where we are, we’ve now got a high quality player coming in who has played first team football and Champions League football, and that will stand him in good stead.

“He won’t be overawed or fazed by anything, particularly now when we’ve got some big games coming up.”

Darby arrives at the County Ground with a promising reputation as a hard-working full-back who is more than capable of providing an attacking option.

And Wilson admitted: “Bringing in a player like Stephen just proves how ambitious we want to be.

“You need to have quality players if you are going to get consistent results, and that’s what we want.

“We have shown so far we can do that but need to take it up to another level if we can, because this is the tough end of the season.

“These boys are very much sought-after and we are very thankful that we’ve been given the chance take Stephen on.

“He will go straight into the squad. I haven’t brought him in to sit on the bench and warm his backside, not at all.

“Make no mistake about it, he hasn’t just come here to sit around.”

Darby could go straight into Swindon’s starting line-up tomorrow at Brighton at the expense of Kevin Amankwaah.

The former Bristol City man has only just recovered from a hamstring strain, and was forced off with another knock on Tuesday night at Milton Keynes Dons.

Wilson said: “Kevin took a kick to the glutes, which is a posh way of saying he got a kick up the a***. Fortunately it wasn’t from me!”