It’s that time of the year when football fans are filled with expectation and excitement as their club prepares for what many hope will be an extremely busy and constructive transfer window.
This time last year Coventry City supporters were filled more with dread and resignation to the loss of their two best players and worrying how the recruitment department would navigate a way around that particular bump in the road of progress towards the Premier League. Twelve months on and the Sky Blues have shown that there is life after Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer as the team continues to evolve and grow again with fresh and stronger overall foundations for success.
And so to another summer of strengthening, most have come to terms with the imminent loss of Callum O’Hare and the only real outstanding concern on the player front is if a higher placed club comes in for Ben Sheaf, with a bit of early speculation linking him with interest from Fulham and newly-promoted Ipswich Town, to add to the on-going links to a Luton side now confirmed as returning to the second tier and ambitions to bounce straight back up.
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Other than that, there may be a bit of tittle-tattle around Ellis Simms and Haji Wright due to the fact that both were just one goal shy of 20 in their first season at the CBS Arena, but with the pair being on long-term deals and just starting their development journey with the club it would be difficult to see either leaving at this particular juncture.
The one bit of annoying paper/web gossip that keeps cropping up, however, is regarding interest in Mark Robins, largely due to the amount of managerial vacancies with the likes of Hull and Norwich getting rid of Liam Rosenior and David Wagner, respectively, and mounting speculation about Vincent Kompany’s future at newly relegated Burnley amid talk of the Belgian being wanted by Brighton.
The Hull link was floated a week or so ago but, rest assured, there was never anything in it and Tigers’ owner Acun Ilicali is aiming to have his new manager in place by the time this week is over, after two weeks of talks with German Tim Walter. That aside, a move to East Yorkshire just wouldn’t make sense to what is, with all due respect, a smaller club. Hull have big ambitions and a decent fanbase with an average home gate of just short of 22,000 last season, but why would Robins give up on the Sky Blues project he’s well down the line with now?
If he was still treading Championship water under Sisu with an on-going limited budget holding him back from making real progress unless he got lucky then you could understand it, but under the hugely ambitious Doug King there’s a real sense of enthusiasm and anticipation that this is a club on the up.
The Norwich job often gets linked to Robins whenever it becomes up for grabs due to his association with the club from his playing days, but he’s way down the list according to the latest bookies’ odds and it’s understood that the Canaries are again looking abroad for their next manager.
