SHAMROCK ROVERS HAVE signed Markus Poom, the Estonian international and son of former Derby County goalkeeper, Mart.
The midfielder joins on a season-long loan from Flora Tallinn, the Estonian champions.
The 23-year old has won 13 international caps so far. Poom was born in Derby, where his dad played from 1997-2003, making 146 appearances for County in a career that also included 58 games with Sunderland.
Rovers’ Head Coach, Stephen Bradley said the club have been watching Markus Poom for “a long time”.
“We really like his attributes and how he plays the game. We’ve watched him now for a long period of time, before we played Flora Tallinn [in 2021] when we would have watched a lot of them.
“We’ve been enquiring about him for quite some time but in the last 6-8 weeks we’ve known that it might be a possibility to get him in. Once we felt that the club was willing to do a deal with us, Stephen McPhail worked extremely hard to go and make it happen.
“He brings a lot of high-level experience, so he’ll definitely add to the group in that regard.
“Markus would tell you that he favours a number 8 position as a box-to-box midfielder, but we’ve seen him playing deep-lying and as a 10, so he’s played different roles in that midfield area. What I think you’ll see is that he’s an all-rounder that can do everything. It’s just about getting him in and getting him used to the way we play as quickly as possible.”
