OUT-of-favour Owen Garvan has turned down a chance to move on loan to another club.The Ipswich Town midfielder, frozen out of the first team picture for more than a month, is free to try and get some first team action under his belt elsewhere.
Carl Marston
OUT-of-favour Owen Garvan has turned down a chance to move on loan to another club.
The Ipswich Town midfielder, frozen out of the first team picture for more than a month, is free to try and get some first team action under his belt elsewhere.
But although manager Roy Keane is prepared to facilitate a move, Garvan himself is not going anywhere - at least for the moment.
“Owen Garvan had an opportunity to go on loan, but he did not want to go,” insisted Keane.
“It's not important which club came in for him, because he did not want to go out and play some first team games.”
Garvan has rattled up 143 league appearances, since graduating from the first team at Portman Road. He was also voted the Irish “Young Player of the Year” last term, in recognition of his excellent performances for the Republic of Ireland Under-21s.
But the 21-year-old Dubliner was dogged by inconsistency last season, despite a good return of seven goals, and his Town career has spluttered to a halt following the first month of this term.
In fact, Garvan has only started one league game, away at West Brom on August 22, and he was hauled off at half-time in that 2-0 defeat. That was his last senior outing in a Town shirt.
The below-par performance at The Hawthorns prompted Keane to say that - “There are one or two players who played at the weekend who will not play for me again” - although he has since retracted that comment.
Garvan did play for the Reserves in Wednesday afternoon's 6-2 win over Stevenage Borough, but his hopes of a return to first team action seem a very long way off.
Keane is not adverse to letting some of his younger players go out on loan, and that might well be the case over the coming weeks.
Bermudian front-runner Reggie Lambe, who impressed with a hat-trick for the Reserves this week, is an obvious contender.
“Good young players might benefit from going out on loan,” continued Keane.
“It can be a good experience for these players, such as Reggie Lambe. I'm very open-minded about this,” added Keane.
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