It’s clear for every Coventry City fan to see that there’s a gaping hole in the team. The loss of the club’s leading goal scorer this summer was one thing, but the departure of such an influential midfield figure like Gustavo Hamer was always going to be the hardest position to replace and recover from as the Sky Blues attempt to grow stronger and edge closer to promotion back to the Premier League.
Although Mark Robins and the supporters hoped Hamer would give the club one more year, it didn’t come as a great shock that he wanted to leave, to further his own career and try his hand at top flight football. And City’s recruitment department didn’t just sit back with fingers crossed, hoping he’d stay. They were, like any recruitment department worth their salt, proactive. Players were identified and targeted but, unfortunately, never got over the line.
It’s been a tough one for supporters to get their head around, particularly given the fact that the club were seemingly £35million richer for the sale of their star assets, coupled with the financial boost from 19,000 season tickets. But life isn’t always as simple as it seems in football, and just because the club held out for £20m for Viktor Gyokeres doesn’t necessarily mean that cash has all come in up front.
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“No, it doesn’t work like that,” agreed Robins, speaking to CoventryLive. “It’s not as simple as that. In an ideal and simplistic world of playing Championship Manager on a computer it is, but it’s not like that at all in reality. You’ve got people involved for a start, and you’ve got a lot of other factors involved. But it wasn’t for the lack of trying.”
In fact, City missed out on a number of targets in midfield and other positions over the course of the transfer window, such is the complexity of factors at play when trying to draft in the right players and characters at the right price, often from clubs who are reluctant to sell amid competition from rival suitors.
Some targets were in the public domain but Robins revealed there were others that were kept well under the radar. “There were one or two that people didn’t know about,” he revealed, “but we missed out on them. But there weren’t many we missed. We were just working through methodically what we could do, and obviously there was a lot of negotiation. There was a lot of talking, a lot of interviews in there and a lot of negotiation going on because of the different parties that were involved.”
City’s head of recruitment, Dean Austin, and his staff are already looking ahead to January and even next summer’s transfer window. It’s how successful recruitment works, by planning ahead for all eventualities. For the time being, City now have three months to navigate before the next opportunity to add to the squad, to draft in that final piece of the jigsaw.
But are the midfield targets identified in the summer still in place and available?
“Some will be, yeah, but some have moved on,” admitted Robins. “It wasn’t for the lack of being able to do it. It was just that we needed to recruit right. We can’t afford to make any mistakes. You try to mitigate that but it wasn’t a case of procrastination or anything like that (in the summer), it was all about was the right player available for us.”
He added: “We just lost the best player in the division in that position, in my opinion, and certainly a real driving force from our midfield. And that was always going to be an issue. I think more so than losing Vik, even though Vik was brilliant. He was outstanding for us over time but I think we needed more in that midfield position. But that will happen again over time.”
Injuries haven’t helped matters. “Losing Ben Sheaf was a real blow so early in the proceedings because we were looking like we were starting to tick," he continued. "It suddenly changed things a little bit for us and that’s not any criticism of Kels (Liam Kelly) or anything, it’s just different. It’s just changed the dynamic but that happens whenever you lose any player from a team.”
The question every fan wants to know the answer to is whether the midfield position is likely to be addressed in January?
“I think everybody was clear that it was a position that we needed to do and there were a couple of things that we didn’t manage to get over the line,” he said. “But we can’t just go and do anything because it’s really important that we get the right player, or the right type of player.
“We’re now profiling that for January. It’s something that’s already been done so we’ve got a bit of time now to sort of search out and do that work for them, and hopefully that can be sorted and Dean has a bit of time to look at that.”
So there you have it, City tried to get the right fit in August but were unable to do it for a number of reasons. The key thing now is to get through the next few months and ensure that, come January 1, Robins is able to press the button and finally fill the void.
