Football Season Guide

The fall of Coventry City shows no sign of stopping as the once-proud club were relegated to the bottom tier of English football for the first time since they were promoted from Division Four back in 1959. The problem lies with hedge-fund owners, SISU, who bought the then-Championship club back in 2008 and have overseen two relegations. They are now tenants in their “own home” at the Ricoh Arena. It is a hugely toxic situation and the effect on the team is hardly surprisingly. They finished second bottom of the League One table last season, eleven points adrift of safety, by which time Mark Robins had been appointed as their fourth manager of the campaign. He has returned for his second spell in charge and has been extremely busy over the close season with a whole host of players leaving the club. Midfielders Andy Rose and Gael Bigirimana have both joined Motherwell whilst young defender Cian Harries has signed for Premier League Swansea City. Defender Jordan Turnbull and striker George Thomas, who was outstanding for the Sky Blues last season, are also set to depart for bigger and better things. Robins has been left to rebuild his squad over the summer and will be pleased with the additions of the midfield trio of Liam Kelly, Michael Doyle and Peter Vincenti, who all have plenty of experience of playing at a higher level. He has taken a gamble on striker Maxime Biamou, who has signed from Sutton United. The manager has held onto goalkeeper Lee Burge and midfielder Ben Stevenson, with the latter one of the stand-out performers for the Sky Blues last time out. Coventry City are the biggest club in League Two and in different circumstances would be favourites for the title but there will be another year of protests from supporters against SISU and a play-off challenge would appear to be more realistic.