I try
and keep an eye on former Coventry City players and follow their
careers. Last week Colin Heys came up with one I wasn't aware of,
Ruben Lameiras, who is back in his home country of Portugal playing
for Famalicao.
Ruben left Coventry in the summer of 2017 after making 69 appearances
for the club including the EFL Trophy final in 2017 and joined
Plymouth Argyle. After suffering relegation from League One with the
Sky Blues that season he endured another torrid season last year with
Argyle which saw the Pilgrims relegated to League Two.
Despite
being offered a new deal at Home Park, Ruben decided to move to the
Portuguese side who were promoted to the top flight for the first
time in 25 years and it seems that he is making a success of things
as Colin points out that World Soccer magazine have identified him as
'one to watch'. Famalicao are doing remarkable well too, lying in
sixth place in the Primeira Liga and through to the Cup semi finals
for the first time in their history, not bad for a club whose stadium
holds just over 5,000.
Another
former City player who came across my radar recently is Phillipe
Clement who is managing Belgian league leaders Club Brugge who played
Manchester United in the Europa League this week. Phillipe spent one
unhappy, injury-ridden season at Coventry in 1998-99 having joined
from Genk and made just 16 appearances, eight of them from the bench
before returning to his homeland to play for Club Brugge. His injury
problems cleared up after his move and he went on to make over 300
appearances for Brugge in the next 10 years as well as winning 38
full caps for his country. He's still relatively new at the
management game but led Genk to a surprise league title last season
and was lured away to Brugge who currently lead the Belgian League by
11 points.
Nearer
to home, National League side Barrow are seven points clear at the
top of the table and look favourites to gain promotion to the
Football League after almost 50 years in non-league. They lost their
place in the league in 1972 in times when the bottom four sides in
the old Division Four had to seek re-election in a vote with the best
non-league sides. That year Barrow were unfortunate to face, in the
vote, Hereford United, who had captured the nation's hearts with
their FA Cup exploits earlier that year. Poor old Barrow lost out and
have never got near returning to the league until this season. They
are managed by Cov kid Ian Evatt, who played almost 600 senior games
for Derby, Northampton, Chesterfield, QPR and Blackpool including a
season in the Premier League with the Seasiders. Ian, in his first
full-time management role, is supported by his assistant, former City
defender Peter Atherton who made 120 appearances for the Sky Blues in
the early 1990s. Another at barrow with a Coventry connection is
striker Dior Angus, son of former Nuneaton, Northampton and Fulham
defender Terry Angus.
Peter Atherton
Colin
Heys also alerted to me to the fact that former Coventry loanee Chuba
Akpom is a star in Greece with PAOK Salonika. He left Arsenal in 2018
to join the Greek side and was a member of the team that won the
domestic double last season with Chuba scoring the winner in the Cup
final. He is a regular again this season and has appeared in the UEFA
Champions League.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment