Jimmy Quinn has spoken about latest signing Lee McEvilly, who completed his loan move on Friday afternoon.

Like his Accrington Stanley team-mate Paul Carden, the 25-year-old striker has joined Cambridge United on loan for the rest of the season and he is set to make his debut at Grays Athletic on Saturday.

"I'm delighted to get him," said Quinn. "He's just come back from a loan spell at Rochdale where he scored three goals so hopefully he'll get us a few goals.

"We were lucky enough to find out about his availability through Paul Carden and we got in there as quickly as we could. He's a big, strong striker who's played international football, and we haven't scored too many goals recently so we need to freshen it up in that department.

"He battles away and wins his fair share in the air so I think he's suited to our league."

Liverpool-born McEvilly McEvilly began his career at Burscough in 2000 and was sold a year later for £20,000 to Rochdale, where he stayed for three years, scoring 27 goals in 95 appearances and earning a Northern Ireland cap.

He joined Accrington Stanley on a free transfer in the summer 2004 after a loan spell during the previous season, and scored 17 goals in 41 appearances before returning to the Football League by joining Wrexham a year later.

He scored eight goals in 25 appearances (16 starts) for the Red Dragons, but suffered a broken metatarsal in December 2005, fractured the bone again when making his comeback in the Spring of 2006, and then suffered another fracture in the pre-season of 2006-2007 and was sidelined until November 2006.

McEvilly left Wrexham by mutual consent in June 2007, having scored 14 goals in 51 appearances, and rejoined Accrington for this season, but first team chances have been limited and he recently completed a loan spell at another former club, Rochdale, where he scored three goals in three starts and four sub appearances.

He has now joined Cambridge United on loan until the end of the season and he follows Thursday's arrival of Wayne Hatswell on a permanent transfer, of whom Quinn commented yesterday, "Wayne is as good a defender as you'll get at our level and we're very fortunate to be able to bring him here." [Interview]

The manager believes both men have similar characteristics and they will add resilience to the squad.

"In our league you need to battle and scrap and they're both tough characters. The last few weeks have highlighted that we do need to get a bit stronger in one or two positions and these two fit the bill."

Earlier this week, Quinn completed the signing of Bedford Town's highly-regarded young midfielder Ben Farrell [article].

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