CITY did not take long to replace one winger with another yesterday, with Harry Chapman signing for the Bantams less than seven hours after Charles Vernam's move to Lincoln was confirmed.

The signing of Chapman on a two-year deal has certainly got the fans excited. He has two League One promotions to his name, with Sheffield United and Blackburn, and has never played below the top three tiers.

Chapman is of course a (U20) World Cup winner with England too, so with a silverware record like that behind him, the Bantams will be hoping he can spearhead their push for a League Two title next season too.

Like many of City's signings so far this summer, he has confessed that the lure of Mark Hughes was strong, and he cannot wait to play under the former Blackburn and Man City boss.

One thing he will be desperate to do is become a first-team regular, as given the amount of time he has spent on loan, first from boyhood club Middlesbrough and then Blackburn, he has never managed more than 28 league games in a season.

He could never quite manage to get a run of games going for Blackburn in the Championship, and speaking to our sister paper the Lancashire Telegraph in April, Chapman said: “My future, I have no idea. I am out of contract at Blackburn and I have all summer to decide what I want to do.

“I think the next move has to be the perfect one for me. I’m getting to that age where I need to play, cement my place in a team and really show what I can do.

“It could be here, you never know. We’ll have to see what the future holds. I like the boys. I like living in the area, it’s a really nice place to live.”

His former manager at Blackburn, Tony Mowbray, was frank about Chapman in January, when he returned to Ewood Park from a loan spell at Burton.

He told the Lancashire Telegraph: “Harry Chapman is a young lad who for me has to understand what it is to play for a team with ambition and you have to do what the manager wants, to run, to chase, to fight and to compete.

“If you’re a Harry Chapman type of player you then need to beat players and contribute with goals and assists.

“It’s football, it’s pretty simple for me. If Harry can do all that, which is why he was brought to this club, then Harry Chapman is a good footballer.”

Sadly, he did not play for Rovers after that, but given the Lancashire outfit were gunning for the Championship play-offs at the time, Mowbray perhaps felt it was too big a stage for him.

Either way, Chapman now has the grandest stage in League Two to test himself on, and as those above quotes prove, both from himself and Mowbray, he knows he has to get it right over the next two years.