EXCLUSIVE: Nathan Lowe wants to impress Stoke whilst on loan at Walsall

Striker Nathan Lowe has been assured new Stoke boss Narcís Pèlach is taking notice of his goalscoring exploits at League Two Walsall.

The talented teenager has hit the ground running at the Saddlers and has already reached double digits for the season.

Lowe, 19, won the EFL Young Player of the Month award for October for scoring four goals in five appearances.

“Stoke are pretty hands on. The loan lads are not necessarily out of sight, out of mind,” Lowe told SportsBoom.com.

“I think they have someone coming to pretty much every game.”

“I’m in constant communication with the loans manager there David Hibbert. He’s also a striker coach, I’ve known him for years and we have a good relationship."

“He assures me the new manager knows who I am, which is always positive. They have meetings about me and talk about me supposedly. I can’t verify that, but it’s good to hear!"

“It was nice to win the award. I’m happy that my goals have been recognised and shines a light about what I’m doing at Walsall."

“I have the freedom the express myself and the trust of the manager to do what I please on the pitch within reason and that helps me be my authentic self and play with a smile on my face.”

Lowe has been at the Potters since 2016 and was playing League Two football last season before making the loan switch to the Saddlers and the flying youngster admits it took time to get to grips with the demands of League Two.

Lowe, who hit his target for ten goals by mid-December with weeks to spare, added: “Everything’s different. It’s like everything I’ve ever learned has been flipped on its head.”

“It’s obviously the same game, but it’s the style of play. I’m used to playing with just one striker up top so the transition to two was difficult to adapt to at first. You have to adapt your runs, which position you adopt in the box.”

“The biggest thing is the defenders sometimes don’t watch the ball. It’s like the NFL sometimes where they’re just trying to block the runs. It was tripping me out at the start, I couldn’t get my head around it.”

“I was getting exasperated because there were just trying to grab me, not even looking at the ball. I’ve stopped fighting them at their own game and if they do get close, I try to win a penalty.”

Walsall Have The Quality To Go Up

Walsall have enjoyed a decent start to the season and are currently fighting among the promotion places.

And Lowe believes the squad at the Bescot is more than capable of returning to League One for the first time since 2019.

“We will have wobbles, we might lose a couple of games on the bounce. You never know,” added Lowe.

“But you can’t win them all, but I think we’ll win a lot more than we’ll lose. I’ll be very shocked if we’re not in and around it come the end of the season.”

“Some of the lads we’ve got on the bench most weeks would start in 90 per cent of League Two teams. They would walk into other teams.”