Derek McInnes is delighted Kilmarnock managed to lure Luke Chambers to Ayrshire.
The 18-year-old Liverpool left back won the 2022 Under-19s European Championships with England, playing ahead of now-teammate Ben Chrisene for the majority of the games.
He has been name-checked by Anfield assistant Pepijn Lijnders as a "stand out talent", along with former Killie boss' Lee Clark's son Bobby and Stefan Bajcetic.
Chambers penned a loan deal at Rugby Park until the end of the season with the help of new recruitment chief Russ Richardson, and he's set to go straight into the squad as a replacement for Chrisene who could miss the rest of the season with a knee injury.
McInnes said: “Luke is 18 and actually keeps Ben out of the England set-up. They fight it out for the left-back position.
“With Ben’s injury, the likelihood is he will be out for probably the majority of the rest of the season now. He might come back for the last few games, but we were looking to recruit a left-back and we were really delighted with the support we have had from Liverpool and Luke’s agent to get him here with us.
“We felt even last week when it was first mooted, with the clubs interested in him, we were not sure we could win the fight.
“I remember saying to Ben that in the summer at the Under-19s Euro Championship he only managed to play around 60 minutes out of the three games.
“I said: I see the boy Chambers from Liverpool played ahead of you. He must be some player if he is keeping you out.
“So we’ve managed to get, hopefully, something similar in what we had Ben because we were really pleased with him before he got his serious injury against Celtic at Hampden. Unfortunately, our worst news was confirmed last week.
“So the fact we were in a January window gave us the chance to address that and, thankfully, we have managed to get that done with our connections to Liverpool and them thinking this is a good place for him as well.”
When asked if Richardson having links at Liverpool helped with the deal, McInnes said: “It doesn’t do any harm. Obviously, Russ knows the boy forensically. He knows the people that deal with the academy and the loan side of it and the powers that be there.
“We still had a job to do to convince the boy and the family, but it feels right and I think he will do well for us.”
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