Coventry City news from CoventryLive as Sky Blues owner Doug King looks ahead after the play-off final defeat to Luton Town
Doug King admits Coventry City have a “big” summer transfer window ahead of them but believes the club are well placed to reshape Mark Robins’ squad ahead of another push for promotion next season.
Coventry fell just short of reaching the Premier League this time around as they were edged out on penalties by Luton Town in the Championship play-off final at Wembley on Saturday. Thoughts now turn to the 2023-24 campaign and another year in the second tier of English football.
King only bought the Sky Blues in January and despite the disappointment of defeat by the narrowest of margins in the most lucrative match in world football, he believes the future is bright. “I think that we’re moving in the right direction,” the executive chairman told talkSPORT.
“It’s only been five months – it feels like five years – but we’re doing things that I want to do to take us to where we nearly got to on Saturday.”
King know how tough it is to get out of the Championship, especially when competing against clubs coming down from the Premier League. “Obviously I’m aware of the situation,” he said. “It’s a ridiculous situation with respect to sustainability, especially in the Championship. There’s a new broadcasting deal done that will help from 2024 to some degree – but I’m hoping that the White Paper (on football governance) works its way through Parliament at speed and there is a realignment of funds down the pyramid, and we narrow the spread between the bottom of the Premier League to the Championship and we don’t distort the league through the parachute payment, which makes it really difficult to compete when your revenue is eight or nine times less than your competitors.
“So I’m hoping those things work through but if not at speed, we will continue the fight and I’m well aware that what we need to do will be done sensibly. Structurally, we’ve got a very solid management team in there, who have been in there for six years and we’ve just signed them up for another four. They’re on the journey, I’m on the journey and we’ll see how it plays out.
“It is a difficult line to handle and manage in the current set-up. As I say, I’m hoping it changes somewhat but at Coventry, we will do it sensibly, we will be positive. We need to raise more revenues, I think everyone at the club and the fans are aware of that, as we issued a Premier League package for the new season ticket and we’re out there trying to raise that side of the equation, things that are in our control, so that we can deploy more into the squad.”
Promotion will be the aim for Robins and his players once again next season. King said: “In my first press conference, I said we need to be in the top half of the table, we need to be in the play-offs three years out of five. This year, let’s say, has been a bit of a bonus year if we throw that in, and then I’m hoping he (Robins) gets one of those three out of five through the door.
“Look at Brentford, I think they lost nine play-offs before they won the 10th. It’s a difficult thing to get through that route but that is the most logical route, because we’re well aware of that distortion. If that distortion was changed relatively quickly, let’s say in one or two years, I think the opportunity for us would be much better. But as it stands today, that’s the expectation and Mark’s well aware of that.
“I think positive times (are ahead). We’ve obviously seen Huddersfield get into the play-offs and then move down (finishing 18th this season after a relegation scare). I’m early into this, I’ve looked at it very hard. I’ve been pretty open with everybody about what our targets are.”
Coventry’s retained list was released on Tuesday, with Fankaty Dabo, Julien Dacosta, Todd Kane, Sean Maguire, Michael Rose, Martyn Waghorn and Tyler Walker all departing at the end of their contracts. The Sky Blues also announced their first signing of the summer, with wing-back Jay Dasilva joining on a free transfer from Bristol City.
“We’ve obviously got a big window ahead,” said King. “We let go of quite a few players (on Tuesday) but we’re ahead of that, and the one thing that I made sure of when I came in was that we added very quickly into the recruitment side of the equation, knowing what was ahead of us. And so I think we’re ahead of that game to some degree on where we want to go and what we want to do. That will be pivotal for us to restructure and achieve what we set out for Mark to do, which was the three out of five play-offs in the five years.”
