Town boss Kieran McKenna says new signing Marcus Harness is a good fit for the system the Blues play and emphasised the former Portsmouth man’s versatility.

Harness, 26, was signed from Pompey for an undisclosed fee on Friday night with the move announced at 11pm.

“Just to keep everyone up on a Friday night!” McKenna joked. “We’re really happy with it as a club, he really stood out to our recruitment team and also stood out to us as a coaching team in terms of the League One matches that we looked at last year as someone who is a really good fit for our system.

“Has a lot of different attributes, technically very, very good, very good taking a ball between the lines, driving forward, in one-v-ones and has a good record of scoring and making goals.

“Physically good, dynamic, a good runner, agile and probably most importantly he’s hungry.

“Speaking with him, he’s at an age where he wants to go to the next level, he wants to grow in his career and take the next steps and that’s where a lot of our dressing room is, and that’s where the club is, so I think he’s a good fit.”

Asked in which position he plans to play the former Burton man, he said: “We have a couple in mind for him. He’s very strong as an inside forward, so I think he can play in either of those positions behind the central striker.

“We’ve seen him play very, very well as a central attacking midfielder behind two central strikers and we also know that he can operate touchline wide on either wing.

“We’ve spoken to Marcus about that, we obviously don’t want to give too much away because the season’s coming up but we’ve got a couple of base roles for him that we see him being very, very productive in.”

The Blues boss added: “He’s played wing-back, he’s played on either wing as a winger and played as an inside forward in a number 10 type position and he’s also played as an attacking midfielder. Very versatile.

“He’s played wide on the left as well, he’s played on both sides, a little bit more on the left earlier in his career, but he’s equally capable playing on both sides we feel.”

McKenna says the Blues are still looking to add to their squad: “We’re still active. We still have a few things that we want to do and we’re working very hard towards.

“The club have worked hard. [CEO] Mark [Ashton] and [chief operating officer] Luke [Werhun] and the recruitment team and the coaching staff work very, very hard on identifying and speaking to players who we think can add to us and we’ve still hopefully got a couple of additions to make.”

Town are still chasing former loanee Bersant Celina but are facing opposition from Turkish clubs, while offers have been made for Leicester striker George Hirst and Leeds left-back Leif Davis. We understand both Hirst and Davis remain targets.

Striker Joe Pigott made his loan exit to Portsmouth last night but McKenna says that doesn’t necessarily mean the 28-year-old’s time at Town is up.

“I think it’s a really good move for Joe,” he reflected. “Obviously he had a difficult time last year for a lot of different reasons.

“He’s proven that he can score goals and he’s a very good player and he’s at a stage now where he feels, and probably rightfully so, that he really wants to be a number one striker and be starting every week somewhere.

“Portsmouth have obviously offered him the opportunity to go and do that. It was a move he wanted to make and we supported him with that.

“Obviously it’s a loan move so it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a future with the club, it’s a chance for him to go and get games and I’m sure he’ll do well.”

Photo: ITFC

ArnieM added 18:28 - Jul 16 Wait until He scored his first goal at the SBR end - th Ed n he'll know what noise is .
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mojo added 18:57 - Jul 16 Well reading between the lines it sounds like we are after 3 more still as all different positions. Penny moving on which would give us the 22 overage players
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blues1 added 10:01 - Jul 17 Mojo. Penney very unlikely to be leaving. Certainly if we don't sign Davis, which seems unlikely with him being the only fit lb that Leeds have right now.
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