Lincoln City have confirmed that Blues midfielder Fin Barbrook has returned to Portman Road, his loan spell at Sincil Bank having been brought to an early end.

The Imps’ director of football Jez George revealed in December that the 21-year-old would be leaving his club this month having featured very rarely during the first half of what was meant to be a season-long loan.

Barbrook joined the Imps in August but made only three EFL Trophy [Vertu Trophy] appearances for League One’s second-placed side and continued to play regularly for Town’s U21s during the spell.

Town boss Kieran McKenna admitted he was disappointed that the spell hadn’t worked out for the Southwold-born youngster.

“A little bit. I thought he had a really good pre-season and he had some opportunities,” he said.

“I know Dmitri [Halajko, director of football operations] and different people from the club have been in contact with Lincoln a lot and have been up there to visit.

“Loans can maybe don’t work out how you would hope for lots of different reasons and for a young player it’s about taking the lessons. You can have good loans even when you don’t play because you can take a lot of lessons from being in that environment and, obviously, the team has done well.

“I think at the moment the plan is for him to come back in January and then we’ll assess the situation from there.

“He had a good pre-season and he’s been coming back for the U21s games anyway, so he’s still been getting his minutes. We’ll decide the next best course of action.”

While Barbrook has appeared for both Town - in the Carabao Cup tie at Bromley - and Lincoln this season, as his only games for the Imps were in the Vertu Trophy, he is allowed to go out on loan to another side with a number of other League One clubs having expressed an interest in the summer.

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