WINDOW SHOPPING
ROBINS HOPES TO USE HYAM WAGES TOWARDS SKY BLUES MAKING JANUARY SIGNINGS
COVENTRY City boss Mark Robins hopes to be able to recruit “one or two, maybe three” new players to his squad in the next transfer window.
The Sky Blues are currently subject to a transfer embargo imposed by the EFL after unpaid tax to HMRC. The club has entered an agreement to pay the money owed in instalments and say that their business in the January window will be “unaffected”.
Robins says he’s taking the club at their word that he will be able to trade in the midterm window and revealed that, if allowed to do so, he’ll have funds available to bring in “one or two, maybe three” new players to his thin-looking squad, using cash freed up by Dominic Hyam’s shock sale late in the summer transfer window.
The manager has also addressed the possibility of one of the club’s star assets being sold following the summer interest in Callum O’hare, Viktor
Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer – and insisted any sale would only be for the right value.
Asked by the Coventry Telegraph if he’ll have any scope to get any players in come January, Robins said: “Yes, I’ll have a little bit of money that I have been told that I can have. It will really be Dominic Hyam’s wages, so I will be able to do something and that’s a good thing.
“And obviously on the back of that it depends what happens after that, whether there are any outs; whether anybody is sold.”
City’s current business model is to develop players and sell them for a handsome profit, preferably at the right time, in order to replenish the squad.
Robins was angered by the late sale of Hyam to Blackburn Rovers in August for what appears to be a bargain fee of £1.5 million as the club sought a swift cash injection.
And the 52-year-old is determined that the club get the true value for any players who are sold in the future, adding:
“I will reiterate, if anyone is sold at any point they have to be sold at the value they are worth. Anything under that is just ridiculous – a waste of time.
“So we have just got to make sure we are in the best position we can be going into January which is a really difficult window, and that should not be confined to Coventry City. That includes everyone else in terms of when they come in and want to sign one of your players it should be as difficult for them to achieve.”
There was intense interest and bids for three of City’s players in the summer with the likes of Burnley hotly pursuing O’hare until he got injured, Gyokeres being the subject of a bid from Middlesbrough and linked with Fulham and Everton, and Hamer reportedly admired by a host of clubs including Celtic, Rangers, Brentford, Leeds United and Norwich City.
Asked if he’s expecting that to be the case again in January, Robins said: “If I am honest I have no idea because there have not been any overtures or signal of that. But I don’t know. I hope not.
“I hope there’s nothing and that we can maintain the status quo, get people back from injury and can add one or two players to the group, maybe three. It depends on what happens.”
City are desperately trying to build momentum following a difficult start to the new season, with the team looking back to fine form this week with a brilliant 1-0 win over secondfrom-top Blackburn Rovers lifting them out of the relegation zone for the first time since early August. The last thing Robins needs is to lose one of his big players at the midway point.
“It’s a blow whenever you lose players,” he said. “It was a huge blow when we lost Dominic and that was never planned for. It is what it is and we have to deal with whatever we are presented with at any given time. But that is the future. It’s one of those things that’s very difficult to plan for.
“If you’re planning for something and have the wherewithal to follow through with that, when you’re living like we are where you’re waiting for if someone goes then maybe we’ll have something, and I don’t know what that is yet, then it’s difficult.
“But we have to try to do our best and make contingency plans the best we can do.”