THE surprise return of Ryan Valentine is to encourage competition for places as well as create strength in depth explained Darlington manager Dave Penney.

Valentine signed on loan on Friday evening and made his second Quakers debut less than 24 hours later in Saturday's win at Mansfield Town.

In his previous Darlington spell, which ended after four years in 2006 with a move to Wrexham, Valentine became a crowd favourite by playing in both full-back positions.

But at Wrexham recently the 25-year-old has been used as a central midfielder which is where Penney deployed him at Field Mill as a substitute for the last 23 minutes of a difficult match.

Penney, who wants left-back Paul Mayo to stay on loan until the end of the season, reckons Valentine's versatility will prove valuable. He said: "We see Ryan as either a left or right-back. We felt we needed competition in those areas.

"Paul can play left midfield if Richie Foran needs to play up front, so Ryan gives us options and competition for places.

"He knew he wasn't going to start here after we had just won 2-0 and 3-0 but he is a great addition.

"Ryan's been playing in midfield for Wrexham, they've been playing 3-5-2 and he's been in the centre of midfield sitting in front of the defence.

"Once Mansfield put three up front we decided to put Ryan in there to stop them playing. We could have played him at rightback or left-back but we were doing OK in those areas, we just needed to shore things up in the middle.

"Once we put him and Clark Keltie in the middle with Rob Purdie on the left we had a bit more energy about us and kept the ball better."

In order to complete registration in time for Saturday's game, Valentine has joined on loan initially but Darlington intend to make it a permanent move, while Penney will speak to Notts County this week about extending Mayo's stay.

Saturday's win was Quakers' third in a row, meaning they have bounced back superbly from taking only one point from nine over Christmas and New Year.

In the last week Darlington have also beaten Bury and Morecambe, and because tomorrow's night trip to Barnet has been postponed Quakers have a free week to prepare for back-to-back home games with Macclesfield and Accrington.

Penney said: "It's been a great week. We knew going to Morecambe was going to be tough and we knew Mansfield were going to tough too. Last week they won at Chester and they are doing well in the FA Cup so we knew it wouldn't be easy.

"Until we got a second goal Mansfield were always going to keep coming at us, and they did so this is a fantastic result for us."