Yahoo News Coventry City's 'greatest ever' manager, ex-favourite takes top award and Robins on Rus
Coventry City’s players will have mixed feelings this week. Fresh from the weekend’s realisation that the club’s play-off hopes are all but mathematically over, the Sky Blues have an exciting date at Wembley to look forward to this weekend.
Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final with Manchester United provides a quick pick-me-up for the players and fans alike, providing an opportunity to make more history if they pull off a shock result and get to what would be only their second ever final in the competition City famously won in 1987.
One thing is for sure, Mark Robins’ men will have to play considerably better than they did against Birmingham at the weekend if they want to compete with the Red Devils and avoid an embarrassing scoreline. The focus this week will, no doubt, be all about coming up with a game plan and providing the players with the information and tactical detail they need to both cope with and beat the Premier League side. Here, Sky Blues reporter Andy Turner takes a look at what else is happening in and around the club in another huge week for Coventry City.
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Strach hails ‘greatest-ever’ City manager
Regardless of what happens on Sunday, former City boss Gordon Strachan says Mark Robins is arguably the club’s greatest-ever manager.
Strachan, who managed the Sky Blues at the back end of the Premier League years from 1996 to 2001 when they went down, was speaking to BoyleSports who offer the latest EFL Betting, when he said: “You could argue Mark Robins is the best Coventry manager of all time. You have Jimmy Hill, you have John Sillett who won the cup, but Robins has been there a long time and he’s dragged them up.
“To produce that performance against Wolves was phenomenal.”
Since returning to the club in 2017, Robins is about to oversee his fourth trip to Wembley in the semi-final of the FA Cup, having previously been to the national stadium in the Championship play-off final, League two play-off final and Checkatrade Trophy, having gained promotion from the fourth tier to within a whisker of a return to top flight football.
EFL awards pass City by
Coventry City got a passing mention in this year’s EFL awards, while former favourite Jodi Jones showed that he’s finally back up to the levels that he hit with the Sky Blues before being struck down by injury by being named League Two player of the season.
It really is great to see the 26-year-old firmly re-establish himself in the division he took by storm with the Sky Blues in 2017, scoring five goals and earning rave reviews and attention from Leeds United, who were tipped to make a January move for his services before his burgeoning career came crashing to a halt at Stevenage with the first of three consecutive ACL ruptures.
He’s scored six goals and popped up with 23 assists for Notts County this term – only his second full season since returning to fitness – and is still at a good age to go on and push to play higher.
As for the current crop of Sky Blues, the only mention the club got in Sunday’s awards ceremony was in the goal of the season category, which Ipswich Town’s Wes Burns won for his strike with the outside of his foot against Coventry in the 2-1 Championship defeat at Portman Road in December.
The Championship’s other winners are:
Manager of the season: Kieran McKenna, Ipswich
Player of the season: Crysencio Summerville, Leeds
Young player of the season: Archie Gray, Leeds
Apprentice of the season: Archie Gray, Leeds
Team of the season: Mads Hermansen (Leicester), Kyle Walker-Peters (Southampton), Ethan Ampadu (Leeds), Jacob Greaves (Hull), Leif Davis, Ipswich, Gabriel Sara (Norwich), Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (Leicester), Morgan Whittaker (Plymouth), Crysencio Summerville (Leeds), Sammie Szmodics (Blackburn), Georginio Rutter (Leeds).
That triallist time of year
It’s that time of year when City traditionally take a look at a series of traillists with a view to boosting the club’s development squad. Decisions have generally been made on the futures of young pros at Premier League clubs, with plenty of Championship Academies ready to snap any potential talent they think they can work with a step below.
Asked if City are actively looking at Under-21s recruitment at the minute, manager Mark Robins told CoventryLive: “I don’t know about that at the moment. We are trying to secure our own players on their professional contracts. There will be players coming in but in terms of recruitment my focus is on what we’re doing at first team level, but also there are other bits and pieces going on. But it’s all vague at the moment. We might do something but we need to see where everyone ends up.
“Contingencies are put in place but we have to wait and see because until things really firmed up we don’t know 100 percent what we can do and where we may need to recruit or otherwise.”
City lose out to Villa
City's Under-21s were beaten 3-1 by Aston Villa in the semi-finals of the Birmingham Senior Cup at Villa Park on Friday night. A fresh-faced Sky Blues' side came from a goal down to pull level at 1-1 going into the break from a goal from Kain Ryan, but the hosts went on to score two more in the second half to knock Mark Delaney's lads out of the competition.
Robins on Rus
One development player who had been tipped for success is former Southampton prospect Marco Rus, who joined the Sky Blues in 2021 after being released by the Saints. The central midfielder had been hoped to bridge the gap to the first team but the 21-year-old returned to his home country and home town Cluj in Romania on loan in February to play for FC Universitatea Cluj in Liga 1.
Asked what’s happening with the player, Robins revealed: “He’s out playing in Romania at the moment and that’s as far as it goes. As far as him and his future goes, we’re still talking about that. He’s gone out to play, it’s as simple as that and sometimes they have to go out and find their way and then we just keep tabs on them and see how they do. But that’s more down to the recruitment team to feed that information back.”
