Charlton Athletic director of recruiting Steve Gallen has discussed the loan signing of Chelsea defender Juan Castillo.
The 22-year-old had returned to the Blues after a largely unproductive stay at Birmingham City in the first half of the season.
Gallen told Charlton’s website: “Juan is a player that I’ve been keeping tabs on for a couple of years now. I saw Juan play for Chelsea U23s maybe more than two years ago – the first game I saw him play was at Stamford Bridge against Derby’s U23s and the first thing I thought when I saw him was, ‘Wow what a great athlete’. He’s quick, he’s direct, he’s athletic, he’s strong, he wants to take players on.
“We’ve just thought that we’re quite strong at the right-wing back position – Jonathan Leko has been playing in that position, DJ [Diallang Jaiyesimi] has been playing in that position. We just thought we wanted someone a bit more attacking on the left-hand side just to give a little bit of balance and a bit of competition to the other players who play that position.
“So, it’s something that’s been talked about for a few weeks and the Juan deal as it happens was actually done a few days ago, but we’ve only actually been able to get him in just now, so we have to give him a bit of time to get up to fitness, but I think he’ll come in and do well for us.
“His pace is the first thing I noticed about him, his willingness to take people on and his left-foot. You see a lot of right wingers and you see a lot of right-sided players playing on the left coming inside on their right foot and stuff like that, so we wanted a bit of balance really there and we needed someone who’s going to be attacking.
“The main thing I want to do is give the manager some options, so we’ve got defensive players for the wing-back position if he wants to do that, and we’ve got attacking players for that and we’ve got that on both sides. So, I think it’s the coaching staff now who needs to do a little bit of work, get Juan up to speed, get him fit, get him ready, training in the team and then it’s up to the manager whether he picks him or goes with someone else – I’ll leave that to Johnnie [Jackson].”
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