“My agent told me to have a conversation with Frank Lampard. I don’t think there’s anyone you’d rather play for as a midfielder. It was a massive compliment he wanted me” Matt Grimes on his Coventry City renaissance

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Coventry City midfielder Matt Grimes has become Frank Lampard's general on the pitch(Image credit: Getty Images)

For any player, leaving a club after a decade of loyal service is never an easy decision to make.

And for Matt Grimes, who spent 11 years with Swansea City, the decision to part ways in January 2025 was always going to be something of a gamble, given how synonymous he was with the Welsh side.

But fast forward 18 months and Grimes is getting ready for another crack at the Premier League after his decision to join Coventry City paid off handsomely.

Grimes on his decision to join Coventry

Grimes had spent 11 years at Swansea City (Image credit: Getty Images)

“I gave a lot of years to Swansea and I’m very thankful for what they gave me in return,” he tells FourFourTwo. “But I felt like it was the right time to have a crack somewhere else.”

The Sky Blues would pay £4million for the midfielder, who admits that his decision to join Coventry was in part made by the fear of missing out on what could have been.

Lampard has delivered Premier League football at Coventry City (Image credit: Getty Images)

“It’s turned out as well as it could have done,” he continues. “I thought to myself, ‘If I don’t go and Coventry get promoted, I’d be gutted’.

“But then I thought, on the flip side, ‘If I go to Coventry and Swansea get promoted, I’d be just as devastated’.”

With a decision to make, Grimes mind was made up when he got the chance to talk to Coventry boss Frank Lampard.

“I remember my agent saying ‘Just have a conversation with Frank Lampard’,” he adds. “I was very settled at Swansea, I was very happy, and we were like, ‘Let’s just have a conversation, see how it goes’.

“As a midfielder, I don’t think there’s anyone you’d rather play for than one of, if not the greatest English midfielder of all time. It was huge. It was a massive compliment that he wanted to sign me.

The Sky Blues eased to the Championship title last season (Image credit: Getty Images)

The 31-year-old has spent much of his career chasing promotion to the Premier League and after several agonising near-misses, achieving this goal with Coventry has vindicated his decision to move on from Swansea.

“I’m not sure exactly how many seasons I’ve played in the Championship, I think seven or eight, but I’ve had three play-off campaigns and eventually won the league.

“The painful moments make the good ones even sweeter.”

For more than a decade, Joe Mewis has worked in football journalism as a reporter and editor. Mewis has had stints at Mirror Football and LeedsLive among others and worked at FourFourTwo throughout Euro 2024, reporting on the tournament. In addition to his journalist work, Mewis is also the author of four football history books that include times on Leeds United and the England national team. Now working as a digital marketing coordinator at Harrogate Town, too, Mewis counts some of his best career moments as being in the iconic Spygate press conference under Marcelo Bielsa and seeing his beloved Leeds lift the Championship trophy during lockdown.

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