Mark Robbins of Coventry City wins the Sky Bet League One Manager of the Month award - Mandatory by-line: Robbie Stephenson/JMP - 08/11/2018 - FOOTBALL - Coventry City Training Ground - Coventry, England - Sky Bet Manager of the Month Award
Coventry City and Haji Wright: Super Bowl links, World Cup exploits of club record signing
CoventryLive brings you the lowdown on new Coventry City striker Haji Wright
Coventry City have signed quick and powerful USA international Haji Wright for a club record fee.
According to Yağız Sabuncuoğlu, Editor-in-Chief at Turkish outlet SportsDigitale, City agreed a fee of €9million (£7.7m) for the 25-year-old who played against England in the World Cup last November.
The source, who has almost a million followers on Twitter, says the fee could rise to €11m based on bonuses and that there will be a 20 percent sell-on clause in the deal.
Manager Mark Robins was in the market for two more strikers to give him a pool of four competing in the Championship. He only had two in Ellis Simms and Matty Godden following the summer departures of Viktor Gyokeres, Tyler Walker and Martyn Waghorn.
Here we take an in-depth look at Haji Wright.
What do we know about him?
Born in Los Angeles, California, Wright is of Liberian and Ghanaian descent.
Of good stock:
According to Wikipedia, Haji’s brother Hanif played on the under-19 team of Bonner SC in 2017 while his cousins are also active in athletics.
Joseph Putu played cornerback for the Florida Gators, his second cousin, Isaac Nana Addai, played for the Liberia national under-23 team as well as Boston City FC, and his third cousin, Joseph Addai, won Super Bowl XLI in 2007 with the Indianapolis Colts.
Club career so far:
A former USA youth international, Wright began his career at New York Cosmos but did not take long to make the move to Europe as he joined Schalke. Wright made just seven appearances for the German side’s first team, but was prolific at B team level as he netted 14 goals in 22 appearances.
After difficult spells at SV Sandhausen (loan) and VVV-Venlo (permanent), Wright then discovered his goal scoring touch when he made the switch to SonderjyskE. He has scored 13 goals in 37 appearances for the Danish side but joined Antalyaspor on loan for the 2021/22 season.
After a relatively slow start in Turkey, come the final two months of the season Wright could not stop scoring. He netted nine goals and provided two assists in the last 10 games of the season to help Antalyaspor end the campaign 16 matches unbeaten and seventh in the table.
International stage:
Wright earned his first caps for the United States in 2022, having represented his country in the Under-17s World Cup, playing three of the four matches during an international break and scoring on his debut off the bench in a 3-0 win over Morocco.
Wright played in all four of the USA’s games at the World Cup, scoring in their 3-1 defeat to The Netherlands in the last-16 defeat in Qatar. He played against England in their Group C match, starting in a front three with Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic, who has since moved to AC Milan for £22m, to his right and Tim Weah of Juventus to his left,
