\n Dominic Ballard has joined the Robins in a four-year deal for an undisclosed fee from Leyton Orient.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 21-year-old forward, who netted 23 goals in 40 league appearances last season and won the League One Player of The Season becomes their eighth signing of the season.\n<\/p>\n
\n Michael Skubala had previously expressed a desire to enhance forward positions with “pace and power.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Sporting director James Ellis said: “Dom is only 21 years old and already has a proven record of scoring goals.\n<\/p>\n
\n “He has a big future ahead of him and we’re and we’re excited to see how he develops over the coming years.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Along with our other front-line players, we now have options for Michael and his staff to have different approaches and selections where required in what will be a highly competitive season.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Ballard smashed in 23 goals in 40 league games for Leyton Orient last season, despite the team finishing just one place above the relegation zone.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ballard made his senior debut for Southampton with a goal against Cambridge United in the EFL Cup as a 17-year-old in 2022.\n<\/p>\n
\n Scoring five goals in 12 appearances for Reading in 2023\/24, the youngster has played in League One for Cambridge United and Blackpool.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ballard has an injury-hit loan spell with the Royals, his first major spell in the first-team since breaking through at St Marys. A patella injury ruled him out for more than half of 2023\/24 as Ruben Selles’ Royals finished 17th in League One.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dominic Ballard has joined the Robins in a four-year deal for an undisclosed fee from Leyton Orient. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-259585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}