Coventry City central defender Kevin Malaga is set to join Nuneaton Borough on a one month’s loan. Nuneaton play Luton Town in the FA Cup on Saturday and if the deal goes through the French defender and if he plays in the game, he will be cup tied and unavailable to Mark Robins in any later games.
Malaga, aged 25, joined Coventry from Nice on a three year deal in the summer, but has only made two appearances for the Sky Blues since joining the club and none since Mark Robins replaced Andy Thorn as manager.
Malaga has played as one of the over aged players in the under21 team to give him playing time which he desperately needs and the loan move will give him a little more time on the field of play.
Speaking to the Coventry Telegraph's Alan Poole, Mark Robins explained, “He needs some games against men and this gives me an opportunity to see him in that environment.
“Under-21 games don’t really suit him, although I saw a little bit more of the real player at Leicester the other week, so I think it would be good for him to spend a month there and I’m happy for him to play against Luton.”
Robins had placed Malaga on the transfer list last month, although he cannot move until the January transfer window. Part of the reason being the amount of central defenders on Coventry City’s books, but as far as Robins is concerned Malaga has little prospect of ousting any of the more established players such as Richard Wood, Nathan Cameron, William Edjenguele, Jordan Willis and the on loan Reece Brown. Jordan Clarke impressed Robins with his substitute display in the Capital One Cup game at York earlier in the month and so improved his own chances of being selected.
Robins is happy enough with having too many centre halves in the squad, but what does concern him is the lack of balance and ability to adapt to playing out of position if and when the need arises.
Robins admitted: “I can’t carry too many centre-halves. Although it looks as if we’ve got an embarrassment of riches when you see all the names at the back of the programme the squad isn’t as well balanced as it could be and a lot of them are young players.
“It needs to be at a manageable level where everybody has a chance of playing and at the moment some of them can’t see the wood for the trees. I need to be ready to make some tweaks and adjustments and if people come in for some of our players I’d be interested in hearing what they’ve got in mind.”
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