‘Conversation’ between Doug King and Mark Robins about Coventry City’s start to the new Championship season
Sky Blues manager Mark Robins requests patience from the team’s supporters in the latest Coventry City news from CoventryLive.
Mark Robins has received the backing of Doug King amid Coventry City’s sluggish start to the new Championship campaign, during which the Sky Blues have managed just one win in the first seven games to leave them 17th in the table and four points off the bottom three.
The Sky Blues owner has previously stated his ambitions for the club, insisting he wants the team to be pushing for the play-offs in three of the next five seasons as he looks to return City to the Premier League. With that comes obvious pressure to succeed while expectations have naturally risen among many fans following last term’s achievement of getting to the play-off final at Wembley and narrowly missing out on promotion in a penalty shootout.
Coventry beat Middlesbrough in the semi-final to book their place against Luton Town, and Boro – currently bottom of the division after a wretched start to 2023/24 – are a prime example of how hard life can be for second tier clubs when they lose key players, amongst those leaving the Riverside in the summer being the division’s top scorer Chuba Akpom.
“I’m not talking about them specifically. I’m sort of relating it to us. And again, you know, when you lose players and when you change things – and people don’t like change – but football and sport changes over time. Circumstances change and people’s ability to perform at the level change, and I’m talking about positively and negatively.
“We lost two of the best players in the division (Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer) and you know that in itself is huge. Losing one is bad enough but when you lose two, it’s difficult. But everybody else then has to change. So your dynamic changes. And we’re finding a different way with it with a new group of players who I really think will be a really good team in time.
“I’m absolutely positive about that and I think everybody just needs to understand that. Everybody is impatient and wants the results now but unfortunately that isn’t going to be the case. We’ve just got to give it a little bit of time. The owner knows that. Doug knows that. It’s a conversation we’ve had and we are in total unison with it. We understand totally what’s got to happen, what’s happening and where and how we need to get to the next bit.”
