SOUTHEND United manager Phil Brown has confirmed the loan signings of defender Jakub Sokolik and striker Elliot Lee.

Lee will spend the next three months with the Shrimpers from West Ham while Sokolik has returned to Roots Hall for at least the next 28 days.

And Brown is delighted to have been able to bring them both in.

“An awful lot of work has gone in to making these two loan deals happen and I’m so pleased they have now been completed,” said Brown.

“Elliot is someone we’ve had our eye on for a while now and we haven’t been getting the goals our play has warranted so I felt as though we needed to bring in another striker.

“There is a break clause in his deal which we can’t really do anything about but he will certainly bring something a bit different to the party and I’m looking forward to working with him.”

Lee will go straight in to the squad for tomorrow’s game at Mansfield Town and so too will centre-back Sokolik who has rejoined Blues from Yeovil Town.

The defender impressed while on loan with the Shrimpers last season, making 11 appearances before he opted against joining the club on a permanent basis in favour of a switch to the Glovers.

But Sokolik has failed to nail down a regular starting slot at Huish Park and he has now come back to the Shrimpers.

“Gary Johnson is keen for Jakub to get games and he’s agreed to him coming here for 28 days which I’m obviously very pleased about because we all saw what Jakub could do at the end of last season” said Brown.

“I felt like we needed to shore things up at the back again so I wanted to bring Jakub back and we can have another look at the situation at the end of his loan spell.”