AFTER UNSUCCESSFUL SPELLS with Blackburn Rovers and Wigan Athletic, Jack Byrne will bid to resurrect his career at Oldham Athletic after joining the League One club on an initial loan deal.
The Irish midfielder moves to Oldham on a four-month contract and will work under former Ireland international John Sheridan at Boundary Park.
Byrne could make his debut for the club in tonight’s Checkatrade Trophy tie against Port Vale in what would be his first senior appearance of the season.
The 21-year-old was frozen out by new Wigan manager Paul Cook and had been training with the club’s underage sides over the last few weeks, just six months after arriving on a three-and-a-half-year deal from Manchester City.
Although he never made a senior appearance for the Premier League outfit, Byrne was highly-rated at City and enjoyed a successful stint in Holland with SC Cambuur, which led to his inclusion in Ireland’s training squad in March 2016.
Things have gone downhill for the St Kevin’s Boys youth product since then, however, as he found life more difficult during a brief loan stay at Blackburn and then his fortunes failed to change on arrival at Wigan last February.
Byrne made just two substitute appearances under previous manager Warren Joyce as Wigan were relegated from the Championship and he was then deemed surplus to requirements by Cook when he took over in the summer.
With Oldham’s resources severely depleted — they only named three players on the bench for Saturday’s league visit to Blackpool — the hope is that Byrne will get to feature prominently throughout the first half of the season.
Byrne has represented Ireland at U16, U17, U18 and U19 level as well as winning 10 caps for the U21s.
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