LUKE McGee heard of City’s interest in him and immediately told Gary Bowyer: I’m in the car and coming now.

Goalkeeper McGee is desperate to get going again after being completely out of favour at Portsmouth.

The 24-year-old has joined on loan for the rest of the season to cover for the injured Richard O’Donnell.

He is set to start against Scunthorpe this weekend as City head into a busy run of fixtures.

Bowyer said: “We warned him about what to expect here and he said, ‘I’m ready, you can’t put me off’. We’re delighted with his attitude about wanting to come and join us.

“He's had a fantastic upbringing at Tottenham and then went and had a great year at Peterborough in League One. Then he played for Portsmouth in League One and is used to playing in front of big crowds.

“It’s very important for any player to step into that environment and be able to handle it, even more so for a goalkeeper.

“The fact that he has done it at Portsmouth and played 50 games for them the year before. That was paramount in my thinking.

“He’s a good size, he’s loud and he’s confident. He’s worked with the back four or five and gone through stuff with them and straight away they’ve got a connection already.”

McGee has not played a competitive game for 13 months but Bowyer is confident the new man will hit the ground running.

“I know the goalkeeping coach at Portsmouth, John Keeley, who I worked with at Blackburn,” he added.

“I know exactly what will have been going on with the goalies down there. There was no way in the world Luke would just be turning up being cannon fodder.

“He would have got worked by John. When I spoke to him, he said Luke was ready.

“Sometimes it works in the third keeper’s favour a little bit. When the manager wants to do his team shape, he pulls the two goalies over and that leaves the other keeper to work with the goalkeeping coach one on one.

“I think that’s happened this year a lot and he’s benefited from that.”

With O’Donnell facing up to a month out, Bowyer decided to leave Sam Hornby at Fylde where he has been playing regularly in the National League.

He also decided it was too big an ask for youngster George Sykes-Kenworthy, who has been the back-up keeper on the bench.

Bowyer said: “I was tempted with the progress George has made. He’s going the right way.

“He’s had a very successful loan at Guiseley and in an ideal world we’d like to get him out again and build games.

“But obviously budget dictates with the size of your squad and what you can do with the goalkeepers.

“People were offering us goalkeepers who hadn’t been out on loan yet and are 19 years of age. We think a lot of George and we’ve got one like that.

“He understood when I spoke to him and he’ll learn off Luke. The experience was the main thing for us.”