Newly Released

As per my previous piece on the releases of Wood, Elliott et al, this is a short piece on the City careers and future prospects of Coventry’s fresh batch of released player. Also as a footnote on the last piece on Nathan Cameron, he’s been offered a contract at Northampton after impressing during the play-offs, good luck to him and I hope he has a long and successful career because he’s certainly got the talent.

Shaun Jeffers

I remember a period towards the end of Coleman’s reign when we had this young, promising striker in our youth ranks called Jeffers. He played a couple of times and I seem to recall he had a great opportunity to score in a home game against Ipswich. Well that’s the most we saw of him in a Sky Blue shirt. The rest of the time has been spent in the reserves or out on loan to League 2 and the Conference.

My other abiding memory of Jeffers though is watching highlights from the Football League Show during his loan period at Cheltenham. Though it only amounted to a couple of glimpses he appeared to be playing as a winger and looked to be doing a decent job of it. However the fact that he appears to be continued to be used as a striker in reserve and loan spells suggests that this is not his favoured position.

Glances were all we got of Shaun and it appears he doesn’t have the talent or application to play in the Football League despite that interesting spell at Cheltenham. It’s interesting comparing him to Callum Wilson who seems to be similar as a pacy forward/winger, as it seems Jeffers got the early limelight whilst Wilson has got a place in the first-team squad from impressing in the reserves. Given that Jeffers is over 20 now it’s probably best that he moves on and finds a first-team place, most likely in non-league, especially as his first-team opportunity has been seized by Callum Wilson.

Will Roberts

We signed Roberts from Wrexham’s academy a few years ago. He played in that 4-0 defeat against Southampton in our last game in the Championship. He’s played a few times for the Wales under 19s. That’s all we know, given that it’s hard to speculate whether he’s been fairly treated or has a future in the game, perhaps.

Josh Ruffels

Along with Shaun Jeffers, Josh has the achievement of being immortalised into a FIFA game as a member of the Coventry squad. He appeared to be a decent midfielder and got into the first-team in the 2-1 defeat at Palace last time we were in the Championship. He appeared to be doing okay but picked up a pretty bad injury at some point since then and only played a couple of games in the development squad before he was released.

In my opinion it seems harsh to punish him for being injured and he can’t have been on much money so it might have been worth at least allowing him to train with us pre-season. This is not Pressley’s opinion and he’ll probably be looking at a Conference North/South team or lower to go to next.

Joe Henderson

Joe is another to have played in that defeat to Southampton and looked okay. That is all, there’s to say about him. He’s had a couple of loan spells to clubs around the 6th and 7th tier of football but hasn’t really played. Another who’ll be considering whether he has a career left in football right now.