Phil Parkinson has hinted that he wants to add Raffaele De Vita to his City band of brothers but knows the clock is ticking.

The 25-year-old Italian has impressed in his two pre-season outings so far against Guiseley and Athlone.

Fans are keen to see him brought in to fill the vacancy in the squad at right wing. De Vita can also play on the left – as he showed at Nethermoor – and up front.

Parkinson expects other clubs to be monitoring the free agent’s progress with City and does not plan to hang around with making his mind up.

The City chief said: “Obviously we can’t deliberate for too long. We’ve got to make a call on it at some point.

“But he’s a goalscorer and the more goalscorers you have in the squad, the better chance you get of winning games. Raffa is a hard-working player but he has got a good scoring record as well.

“He got goals for Swindon last year and you can see he’s got the instinct of a striker. He used to play up front when he first went there.

“You can see that he thinks like a striker when the ball comes into the box and that’s why he has scored goals.”

Rome-born De Vita was one of several first-teamers released by Swindon in the summer after they lost in the play-offs. He started just over half their league games last season and scored eight times.

Signed by Paolo Di Canio from Livingston in 2011, he had also played a big part in their promotion as League Two champions.

De Vita produced a cracking finish in his first City outing at Guiseley and went close to scoring a couple of times in Ireland on Tuesday.

He played the longest of the outfield players before going off with ten minutes left because of blisters.

De Vita later tweeted: “It went well the first time but the second (I was) a little bit tired. New legs needed!”

Parkinson added: “He is physically behind the lads because he missed a couple of weeks we had of running. But he’s looking good and we’ll keep assessing him.

“I wasn’t going to play him Saturday because I was a bit concerned that he hadn’t really trained at all.

“But we did some running with him on Friday and felt he probably needed 25 minutes. He’s getting there physically but one thing you know with him is he’s willing.

“We’re just looking at the moment but I’m pleased with him.”