St. Pat's have added more potential firepower as they seek to keep alive their hopes of European qualification in the SSE Airtricity Premier Division.
The Saints have signed former Liverpool academy striker Glen McAuley until the end of the 2020 season.
Pat's currently sit 5th in the table, but 8-points adrift of 3rd place Bohemians. With 21-goals, Harry Kenny's side have scored the fourth-fewest goals in the top flight so far this season.
McAuley is hoping to do his part to close the gap on Bohs, and the 19-year old is well aware of the task at hand in Inchicore, "Obviously know that they're a very big club, and pushing for Europe. So hopefully I can help us get to Europe by scoring goals and playing well for the team. The League of Ireland has progressed a lot while I was away."
The Dubliner was prolific at U18 level for Liverpool, but found goals and game-time harder to come-by the higher up the ladder he climbed with Liverpool, "The first two years at U18s, I finished top-scorer in the league the first [year] and close in the second. Then my first year of U23s was last year, but that was a bit up-and-down with first-teamers dropping down. It's just about minutes for me now."
That lack of progress saw McAuley leave Liverpool at the end of June, and he's hoping a return home can rekindle his love for the game, "I've been over there for six years, so it's a weird one coming home but I think at the moment in my career it's best to be playing men's football and get back happy playing football again.
When asked by Pat's in-house interviewer what he hopes to get from the move home, McAuley's answer was a simple one, "I think just being happy again. I was over there for a long time and it wasn't feeling right then so I think I needed to move home to get back playing, get back happy and get back happy in myself.
"It's great to be back home and playing for such a big club and I'm just looking forward now to getting started, getting on the pitch and scoring goals and helping the team."
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