Doug King can grant Frank Lampard 'perfect' Coventry City transfer before contract issue arises
News that Coventry City are pursuing Swansea skipper Matt Grimes appears to have gone down well with Sky Blues fans, with the 29-year-old ticking plenty of boxes for Frank Lampard’s team.
The side was crying out for a ready-made midfielder to come in and hit the ground running in the summer, and the experienced campaigner would arguably fill a void that City desperately tried and failed to address with their bid for Marko Stamenic in the last transfer window.
Reliable, robust and rarely gets injured or misses a game – think a combination of Jake Bidwell’s machine-like consistency with Ben Sheaf’s footballing brain and ability - there's very little risk with this one.
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City have enjoyed reasonable success in the European market in recent years but that often comes with a time delay – Victor Torp being a prime example of a really talented player with plenty of development but who has taken 12 months to really get into the pace of the Championship and acclimatise to the English game. Oliver Dovin is another – the Swedish goalkeeper signing in the summer and taking time to adjust but, six months on, is now showing why he was targeted by City’s scouts in the first place.
Grimes makes so much sense in the here and now as well as a long-term replacement for Sheaf. The current City captain is out with a calf strain and due back next month, but, looking further ahead, the former Arsenal prospect has made no secret of his ambition to get back to the Premier League and admitted he’d had interest last summer when, he revealed, Coventry didn’t want to sell him.
The arrival of a suitable replacement like Stamenic, however, might well have paved the way for Sheaf to leave, with King admitting as much when he said, "we don’t know how it would have all played out."
He’ll have a year left on his contract at the end of this season and with no sign of a new deal in the offing, the likelihood is that Doug King will be keen to cash in on the highly-rated midfielder. So the capture of Grimes would be perfect forward planning.
Grimes’ age means that he would be a shift away from City’s recent transfer policy of signing young 20-somethings to develop and grow with the club with a view to earning significant resale value in the future. But every team needs leaders, elder statesmen who have been around the block a few times and know the division, and that’s something Coventry have lacked since they lost Kyle McFadzean a year ago.
Meanwhile, the timing of the attempted deal takes on extra significance due to the fact that the Sky Blues travel to play the Swans this weekend, throwing the player’s involvement in the game up in the air. If the deal is not done by Saturday but is still on the table, it will potentially make for an awkward situation for Grimes knowing it could be his last game for the club he’s served so admirably for the last ten years, up against his potential new teammates. But being a consummate pro, you’d think he’d want to bow out with his boots on and say a fond farewell to the fans. He’d also not want to get injured and scupper his move, of course, so it’s potentially a bit of a dilemma for the lad.
However, if Coventry do manage to get the deal done this week the likelihood is that Swansea will insist on a clause that states he can’t play against them on this occasion. And even if they did allow him to feature, which would be pretty unlikely, Grimes himself would no doubt feel uncomfortable and probably not in the right frame of mind to face the fanbase that enjoyed his services over the last decade – surely a difficult way to say goodbye.
