Frank Lampard makes promise to ‘really interesting’ Coventry City signing
Frank Lampard has revealed that summer signing Raphael Borges Rodrigues was close to making his Coventry City debut on Boxing Day and may well get his opportunity in the coming days and weeks.
The Sky Blues boss has been impressed by the Australian winger whom he’s described as “really interesting” after running the rule over him in training in recent weeks. That earned him a place on the bench against Plymouth Argyle for the first time since joining the club – the 21-year-old having been out injured since pre-season.
Asked how the right winger has been shaping up at Ryton to earn him a place on the bench ahead of striker Fabio Tavares, Lampard said: “He’s training well and that’s why he’s on the bench. It’s hard coming in when you haven’t seen players. He’s a young lad and he’s obviously arrived to this league recently, so he’s got work to do. He’ll have to build up his training and become really accustomed to the robust nature of this league.
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“But he’s a really interesting one, and if I could have got him on today I would have done. But I also have to respect players that have been here a while and trained a lot, people like Jamie (Allen) and Liam Kitching, these ones who also need their minutes and deserve them.
“But if Rafa keeps training the right way, he’ll get minutes and it’ll be great to see what he does and this fully competitive atmosphere. At the minute in training he’s showing good stuff, so we’ll need to see him in games.”
