Mark Robins’ backseat role with Coventry City transfers explained
Coventry City transfer news from CoventryLive as we take a look at what manager Mark Robins has said about his revised role regarding the club’s transfer process
Coventry City owner Doug King and manager Mark Robins
Coventry City owner Doug King and manager Mark Robins discuss transfer business
Five words spoken by Mark Robins in the wake of last Friday’s transfer deadline day have sent off alarm bells amongst some Coventry City fans.
When asked about a proposed loan move for Fabio Tavares to Reading – a deal that had been discussed and was a possibility last week – the Sky Blues boss told CoventryLive: “That’s not my remit now.”
One supporter immediately interpreted that as an unwelcome “power shift” away from the manager, while another proclaimed: “This scares me. I know Dean (Austin) and Doug (King) take a lead on transfers but I really hope Robins has a large/final say on what the squad needs, otherwise he’s undermined.”
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Listen folks, worry ye not. While it is clear that Robins has taken more of a backseat role regarding the club’s transfer business over the last 12 months, it’s been a deliberate move to free up the manager’s time to focus elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have input or a major say in transfers, both in and out of the club.
Obviously Doug King has the casting vote when it comes to decisions on transfers, whether that’s shelling out to sign players or accepting bids for existing players, but those will always be done in consultation with the manager.
Big deals, in particular, are often done for the greater good. Viktor Gyokeres’s sale last summer, for example, helped fund a rebuild and was, therefore, a necessary evil in the circumstances, particularly given that the player wanted to go and it would not have made good business sense to let him run down his contract and go for nothing.
But generally, Robins insists: “You always want to keep everyone together and if somebody goes it’s because you are OK with that happening. That will always hopefully be the case, but hasn’t always been the case.”
As for the watering down of his involvement in the transfer process, it’s a clear indication of how the club’s backroom staff is growing as the club evolves into a top end Championship outfit with serious designs on promotion to the Premier League.
This started with the appointment of Dr Claire-Marie Roberts as the club’s new performance director and has continued with a number of new additions to the coaching, sports science and medical staff.
Robins explained: “My involvement in transfers now is to have an involvement in choosing the players coming in and who departs, mostly, so it’s set up differently now and that’s fine because we are trying to evolve and I literally can’t do everything anymore because it’s impossible.
“It’s something that I have done over the years and really tried to do everything, and had to do everything, and had some brilliant help along the way. But this is different now because it’s set up in a different way and it’s how I wanted it to be.
“You have got to have a recruitment department that works to bring players and highlights players that can come in and help us out and move us forward, but also have a value and then obviously move us on as a club. And then obviously sell some as well. You have to be a trading club. You have to. That’s nothing new and that’s where we are.”
