Yahoo News Coventry City boss provides insight into 'interesting' summer signing
Mark Robins insists Coventry City summer signing Raphael Borges Rodrigues can be "anything he wants,” such is the quality in his feet.
The 20-year-old Brazilian-Australian winger joined the Sky Blues in May for an undisclosed fee from A-League side Macarthur FC, signing a four year contract at the CBS Arena and arriving as the club’s first official capture of the transfer window.
Although a bit of an unknown quantity at the minute in terms of how quickly he will fit in to the pace and rigours of the English Championship, Robins believes that after a settling in period the young forward will flourish and develop into a real asset for the club.
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Initially it was unclear whether the player had joined as an immediate senior option or was more of a development project who might need a bit of time with the Under-21s.
But Robins told CoventryLive: “Rapha is going to be part of the first team squad. He’s a young player who has come over from the other side of the world so he is someone who is an interesting person and interesting player.
“He has a lot of attributes that we are trying to develop and we will see over pre-season, see where he’s at. But he’s got some really good attributes that mean he can be anything he wants to be really.”
He added: “We just need to settle him in and I think that’s going to take a little bit of time but he’s a really good lad, very quiet at the moment and needs to find his feet.”
The club have helped Rapha settle by finding him an apartment in a quiet South Warwickshire close along with fellow new recruits Jack Rudoni and Luis Binks, all of whom are close neighbours and often travel in together to the club’s refurbished Ryton training ground.
“They have all been helped into properties so they are all close to each other,” said the manager, “so they will have that social element to ensure they are not isolated and stuck out on a limb. We have worked really hard on that, so that’s pretty good.”
