Everton Loan round up 2nd March 2015

Everton’s youngsters once again had a mixed bag of results at their respective loan clubs.

We begin our round-up north of border with Conor Grant, whose Motherwell side picked up a huge result in their Scottish Premier League match at home to Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

With Inverness in third place and chasing a European spot, Well were up against it but went in front when Grant’s perfect cross found defender Louis Laing who headed home.

And despite Caley levelling, Motherwell earned three valuably points through Lionel Ainsworth’s deflected strike. They now sit on 21 points alongside St Mirren and Ross County.

Back in England, Matthew Pennington played two matches last week, picking up four points in the process.

On Tuesday, Pennington and Coventry City failed to hold on to a 2-0 lead against Sheffield United, despite the Blades going down to 10 men after former Blues striker Jose Baxter was given his marching orders.

The Everton loanee played the full 90 minutes as the game ended 2-2.

That result saw Sky Blues boss Steven Pressley lose his job meaning Neil MacFarlane and Dave Hockaday took charge ahead of Saturday’s game against promotion hopefuls MK Dons. Once again Pennington played the full 90 and helped the Sky Blues to an impressive 2-1 win which helped them climb out of the League One drop zone.

Meanwhile, in the Championship, strikers Chris Long and Conor McAleny both sat out a game apiece last week. McAleny was an unused substitute in Cardiff’s win at Wigan Athletic but did make a second half cameo when coming on in the 63rd minute in the 1-0 defeat at Wolves.

Long did the reverse – he played the final 28 minutes of Brentford’s 4-0 success over Blackpool in midweek, contributing to no less than 42 efforts on goal from the rampant Bees. However, he was then unused as they lost out 1-0 to Birmingham City on Saturday.

Finally, down in the Vanarama Conference, Ben McLaughlin played 90 minutes in AFC Telford’s 1-0 defeat to Grimsby on Tuesday then just 20 before going off in the 1-0 loss to Alfreton Town.