Northampton sign McGivern

Northampton sign 27 years old Northern Ireland defender on a deal until 2018 January.

McGivern, who has 24 caps for his country, has been training with League One side Northampton for the past few weeks.

“I feel we need to strengthen the squad in the central defensive areas and he will come in to do that,” manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink said.

“With Regan Poole playing a lot of his football in midfield recently and with Leon Barnett recovering from injury, while Ash Taylor and Aaron Pierre have done very well, they have had to play a lot of football recently and haven’t had the benefit of competition for their places.

“Ryan coming in provides that and, with him having been on the training ground with us for a while, we have had the chance to have a look at him and he has already fitted in well with the group.”