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Club News

GILLIEAD RETURNS FOR SECOND LOAN SPELL

7 July 2017

Club News

GILLIEAD RETURNS FOR SECOND LOAN SPELL

7 July 2017

Exciting winger Alex Gilliead has returned to the Northern Commercials Stadium after penning a six-month loan deal with Bradford City.

The 21 year-old has become City's sixth signing of the summer this Friday after completing his loan move from parent club Newcastle United.

Gilliead's deal from Newcastle will keep him at the Northern Commercials Stadium until January 2018.

The attacker can be seen in the main article picture with the Club's new claret and navy away shirt, which is now on sale after first being revealed to supporters this Wednesday.

After putting pen to paper on the necassary paperwork, Gilliead is now set to be added to City's match-day squad for their opening pre-season friendly of the summer at Bradford Park Avenue on Saturday.

Gilliead, of course, will be no stranger to City supporters after spending the second half of last season on loan with Stuart McCall's side.

Although a troublesome hamstring injury restricted Gilliead's number of appearances in claret and amber, the talented attacker still did more than enough to impress the watching City faithful.

Speaking about Gilliead's return, McCall said: "We were pleased with Gilly (Alex Gilliead) last season.

"He was unfortunate with his injury at the back end of the season, but we saw enough of him to know that he can be an asset to us this time around as well.

"While he can help us, we feel we can help him in terms of his development.

"He offers us something different to what we have in the squad already, he will give us some natural width.

"We are now in a fortunate position where we can play a number of players in a number of attacking areas.

"We have players who can play wide, who can play number ten and up front, and we can also play two or three players in attack at once.

"Gilly knows most of the group from last season so we're sure he will bed in well over pre-season.

"With Alex in the squad, I feel we only really now need a right-sided centre-half to add to the group."

Gilliead himself added: "I had a couple of other clubs enquiring about me but having been here last season and having spoken again with the gaffer last week, it was a fairly easy decision to come back.

"I got injured at a bad time last season and I ended up missing seven or eight weeks in total.

"With that in mind, I feel like I have a lot more to show the fans here.

"I'm not coming back to prove a point as such, I just want to show that I can play at this level and I can do well for this club.

"I'm glad this deal has been done early into pre-season so that I can get an understanding of how the team play and how the manager wants us to play."


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