{"id":582185,"date":"2021-02-01T17:15:22","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T22:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=582185"},"modified":"2021-02-01T17:15:22","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T22:15:22","slug":"walsall-sign-max-melbourne-lincoln-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/02\/01\/walsall-sign-max-melbourne-lincoln-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Walsall Sign Max Melbourne on Loan From Lincoln City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/29\/mk-dons-bid-walsall-zak-jules\/\" target=\"_self\">Walsall<\/a> have confirmed that they have signed Max Melbourne on loan from Lincoln City until the end of the season.<\/p>\n<h2>Max Melbourne Joins Walsall on Loan<\/h2>\n<h3>Versatile Defender<\/h3>\n<p>Melbourne has shown his versatility under Michael Appleton this season at the LNER Stadium, filling in at centre-back and in his more natural role of left-back.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old has made 16 appearances so far this season for the Imps, four of which have come in the Papa John&#8217;s Trophy. Melbourne has had to fight for his place in the starting line-up, with Sean Roughan and Tayo Edun also competing for the starting role. It is the latter who currently holds the starting place in Appleton&#8217;s line-up.<\/p>\n<h3>What Was Said?<\/h3>\n<p>Speaking to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.saddlers.co.uk\/news\/2021\/february\/max-melbourne-joins-the-saddlers-on-loan\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">official Walsall website<\/a> after completing his move, Melbourne said: &#8220;I\u2019m delighted to be joining Walsall for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a club I\u2019ve known about for a long time from playing at West Brom for most of my career.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019m an athletic player who enjoys both defending and attacking. I\u2019ve played at both left back and centre back so I\u2019m familiar with the roles. So just starting and joining attacks is just as important as the clean sheet mentality.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Lincoln have done very well as a team up to this point &amp; I\u2019ve learned a lot as a player this season and I\u2019m looking to bring that strong form here and test myself in a different environment.<\/p>\n<p>Saddlers boss Darrell Clarke added: &#8220;We\u2019re pleased bring Max into the squad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/02\/01\/zak-jules-completes-move-to-milton-keynes-dons\/\" target=\"_self\">lost<\/a> Zak so we needed a replacement and Max is coming in with a bit of League One experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a good age, he can play left-back and left centre half.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Melbourne could make his debut on Saturday against League Two&#8217;s bottom club Southend United.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"Ecw2ogrLTRl9j2YyoSemug\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1230554777\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Ecw2ogrLTRl9j2YyoSemug',sig:'uiSGJjQxCm9oxv0kzmA3QBFUGK3Vqt7f-NzWNH3AhC4=',w:'594px',h:'353px',items:'1230554777',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Walsall have confirmed that they have signed Max Melbourne on loan from Lincoln City until the end of the season. Max Melbourne Joins Walsall on Loan Versatile Defender Melbourne has shown his versatility under Michael Appleton this season at the LNER Stadium, filling in at centre-back and in his more natural role of left-back. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2795,"featured_media":582186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34,30,28],"tags":[168,947,4605,2742,136],"class_list":["post-582185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-league12","category-news","category-transfers","tag-efl","tag-lincoln-city","tag-max-melbourne","tag-walsall","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Ben Robinson, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2795"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}