Estonian boom continues as Poom joins Rovers

Shamrock Rovers have completed the loan signing of Estonian international midfielder Markus Poom.

Poom - son of Mart Poom, who played in the Premier League for Derby County, Sunderland and Arsenal - has joined on a season-long loan from Flora Tallinn.

He was part of the travelling Flora squad that defeated the Hoops 1-0 in a Europa Conference League play-off second leg in Tallaght in 2021.

Poom becomes the fourth Estonian to join the League of Ireland recently after Poom's former Flora team-mate Vladislav Kreida joined St Patrick’s Athletic while Sligo Rovers have brought in Bodan Vastsuk and Frank Liivak.

"We really like his attributes and how he plays the game," Shamrock Rovers’ head coach Stephen Bradley said of Poom.

"We’ve watched him now for a long period of time, before we played Flora Tallinn [in 2021] when we would have watched a lot of them. He’s a player we really liked. We’ve had quite a bit of contact with the club over the last number of years and we’re delighted to get the opportunity to work with him now.

"We’ve been enquiring about him for quite some time but in the last 6-8 weeks we’ve known that it might be a possibility to get him in. Once we felt that the club was willing to do a deal with us, Stephen McPhail worked extremely hard to go and make it happen.

"Markus would tell you that he favours a number 8 position as a box-to-box midfielder, but we’ve seen him playing deep-lying and as a 10, so he’s played different roles in that midfield area.

"What I think you’ll see is that he’s an all-rounder that can do everything. It’s just about getting him in and getting him used to the way we play as quickly as possible."

The 23-year-old spent his youth career at Nomme United for five years before joining reigning