Charlton Athletic have completed a permanent two-year deal with South London rivals Charlton Atheltic over the signing of defender Ryan Inniss.
The 25-year-old Palace academy product featured just once this season for the Eagles, in a penalty shootout defeat against Championship side Bournemouth in the Carabao Cup.
The Addicks retain an option to extend the deal by a further twelve months. Inniss trained with Lee Bowyer’s side on Tuesday morning.
“It’s a position that we needed to strengthen,” said Addicks manager Lee Bowyer as he spoke to the official club website. “It has been difficult as there are not many right-footed centre-halves out there but we have managed to get a very good one.
“Ryan is a winner, it is important when you have players like that at the back, and he’s a leader, an organiser and in that centre-half position that is what we were looking for.”
Inniss is now Charlton’s ninth signing of the current transfer window. Charlton have until 5pm on Friday to add further reinforcements to their squad, or conversely to offload any unwanted players.
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The Eagles’ academy product was seemingly deemed surplus to requirements at Selhurst Park, who boast a number of defensive options at centre-back.
With plenty of defensive experience in the squad with the likes of Gary Cahill, Scott Dann, Mamadou Sakho and many more, regular game time was always going to be difficult to come by in SE25 for the former prospect.
As a result, a deal at this stage in Inniss’ career is a superb challenge for the player. Bowyer has already indicated in the aforementioned quotes that Inniss will be seriously competing for a place in regular starting XIs and is evidently thrilled with Inniss’ addition to the squad.
In the long run, the former Eagle will get more chances to prove himself in League One as Palace’s local rivals look to regain their place in the Championship.
