Frank Lampard has handed a “clean slate” to senior Coventry City development duo Jack Burroughs and Ryan Howley following their recall from season-long loans in Scotland.

Versatile Burroughs, 23, who can play as a full-back or wing-back on either flank as well as in midfield, has cut short his spell with Scottish Premier side Kilmarnock with whom he made 14 appearances (five starts and nine from the bench) during the first half of the campaign.

Midfielder Howley, 21, meanwhile, who has also been deployed as a centre-back, has interrupted his spell with Scottish Championship side Ayr United where he played 13 times (five starts and eight from the bench). The latter has featured in two Sky Blues Under-21s games since returning to the fold – scoring twice in the 14-0 annihilation of Colchester United on Tuesday and starting again in Friday’s 2-0 defeat at Birmingham.

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Burroughs, meanwhile, played against Colchester but didn’t feature against Blues, which could suggest he may be named on the bench against Watford in the Championship today.

Asked what’s the plan for the pair, whether it’s a case of assessing them now that they’re back in the fold before deciding whether to re-direct them out on another loan or keep them in the squad for the remainder of the season, Lampard said: “Exactly that.”

As for his first impressions of the lads, he said: “Yeah good, really nice lads. They’re really good on the training pitch, good to talk to. You know that is new for me because I’ve only just met them for the first time and I can’t complain at all. So it is just about assessing them, seeing where they’re at and looking after them as lads and seeing if they can help us.”

Asked if the young players have been excited to come back to work with him as the new boss, he said: “I hope so and, yeah, they’re our players and a change of manager makes them wonder what’s happening. They’re back here. It’s clean slate time.

“We’re looking at them for the first time, you know, hopefully we’re a quite warm staff and they’re coming back into a good building where we’re working hard and giving them the right care and support that they want. We want to help everybody here, especially young lads that are looking to have careers in the game. So yeah, we’ll see how it goes.”

Players cannot play for more than two clubs in any given season so if either feature for the Sky Blues senior side before the end the month they won’t be able to go out on another loan this term.

Asked if it can be difficult to get the right fit in terms of a loan move for some players to aid their development, the head coach said: “That’s the challenge, and you never know. Sometimes you’re there and you try and make the right decisions for the player. There’s a responsibility on the player to go and make it the right fit but there’s also the responsibility to get it right from our point of view. It doesn’t always come off. It doesn’t mean necessarily one thing or the other.

“But what probably both will be better for is the experience of going away, whether it was good, good for a period, not so good or whatever but this is real football and this is real life. So I think that bit they will have learned something from, whether they were good or bad and they have to take the experiences as a positive, I’d say.”

Both Burroughs and Howley are out of contract in the summer but the club has a one year option on both contracts.

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