Coventry City boss gives insight on ‘interesting’ summer signing

Mark Robins insists Coventry City summer signing Raphael Borges Rodrigues can be “whatever he wants” such is the quality of his legs.

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 deal at CBS Arena and becoming the club’s first official signing in transfer window.

Although a bit of an unknown quantity at the moment as to how quickly he will settle into the pace and rigors of the English Championship, Robins believes that after a period of settling in, the young forward will blossom and develop into a real asset for club.

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It was initially unclear whether the player joined as an immediate senior option or was more of a development project who might need some time with the Under-21s.

But Robins told CoventryLive: “Rapha will be in the first team. He is a young player who came from the other side of the world, so he is an interesting person and an interesting player.

“He’s got a lot of attributes that we’re trying to develop and we’ll see in pre-season, we’ll see where he’s at. But he’s got some really good attributes that mean he can be whatever he wants to be really.”

He added: “We’ve just got to settle him and I think that’s going to take a little while, but he’s a very good, very quiet boy at the moment and he’s got to find his feet.”

The club helped Rapha settle in by finding him a flat in a quiet area of ​​South Warwickshire, along with new recruits Jack Rudoni and Luis Binks, all of whom are close neighbors and often travel together to the club’s refurbished training ground Ryton.

“They’ve all been helped into properties so they’re all close to each other,” the manager said, “so they’ll have that social element to make sure they’re not isolated and stuck on one limb. I worked really hard on it, so it’s pretty good.”

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