Wolves loanee Liam McAlinden urged to follow Andros Townsend's example

McAlinden had a dream start to his three-month spell at the Greenhous Meadow when he scored his first Football League goal within seven minutes of coming off the bench to seal a 2-0 win against Gillingham last Saturday.

Tottenham winger Townsend burst onto the international scene by scoring one goal and setting another one up in Friday's 4-1 win over Montenegro and starred in Tuesday's 2-0 victory over Poland that clinched England's place in next year's World Cup finals in Brazil.

Jackett took Townsend on loan to Millwall in March 2011 and the winger scored twice in 11 games at the New Den.

Starting with Yeovil in March 2009, that was one of nine different clubs the 22-year-old has played for on loan, with Leyton Orient, MK Dons, Ipswich, Watford, Leeds, Birmingham and QPR all playing a part in his apprenticeship.

Now Jackett wants McAlinden to seize his opportunity in similar fashion.

"It's very interesting to see Andros Townsend who's the man of the moment for England but he's had nine loan clubs and he's 22," said the boss.

"That shows good ambition from him to continually go out on loan – his first one was Yeovil in League One – and he's worked very hard to get where he is which is in a position where he's starting for England and now where he hopes now he can continue to start for Spurs.

"We hope young Liam McAlinden has a very successful loan spell at Shrewsbury and it can benefit our club in the long run through him getting first-team experience.

"He makes good runs and shows good movement, and we all feel he's a good player for the future."

McAlinden is due back at Molineux in January and Jackett wants him to be challenging for a first-team place.

"We hope that transition is as soon as possible," he said. "We could recall him after 28 days but we don't necessarily want to do it because we want our own forwards to be firing and scoring and remain fit and healthy."