What have Coventry done differently to us?

dontheking said:
I'm F***ing stumped, Are you saying they have been promoted? Or saying I've said it? I'm really confused.
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If they were that much better than us in all the areas you mentioned, why are they only 7 points ahead with a game more?

Especially since we must be "absolute fannies". Surely Norwich, Hull, Preston and Sunderland are all similarly better too?
 
Chris_Boro said:
If they were that much better than us in all the areas you mentioned, why are they only 7 points ahead with a game more?

Especially since we must be "absolute fannies". Surely Norwich, Hull, Preston and Sunderland are all similarly better too?
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Yeah all of the above are better, league doesn't tell lies.
 
Doncaster Boro said:
They sold their two star players after losing the play off final and after an indifferent start they currently sit 6th. Have the players they brought in settled better than our new signings or is Robins a very good manager? I suspect maybe a bit of both.
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They signed two forward to replace the two forwards they lost and spent about 12m on those two alone. I don’t think they’ve improved on last season, they may still finish beneath last years position. I don’t see either of those forwards being great business long term, but they’ve done enough. Ohare is actually the big difference for them
 
BoroMart said:
They signed two forward to replace the two forwards they lost and spent about 12m on those two alone. I don’t think they’ve improved on last season, they may still finish beneath last years position. I don’t see either of those forwards being great business long term, but they’ve done enough. Ohare is actually the big difference for them
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They're 3 points and 5 places better off than at this point last season and have scored significantly more (50 goals to last season's 35), despite losing the best out and out striker in the league in the summer, they've only conceded marginally more too.

They're in a better place than they were last season, despite losing Gyokeres and Hamer.
 
TeaCider said:
They're 3 points and 5 places better off than at this point last season and have scored significantly more (50 goals to last season's 35), despite losing the best out and out striker in the league in the summer, they've only conceded marginally more too.

They're in a better place than they were last season, despite losing Gyokeres and Hamer.
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Many would say they missed their best player last year in ohare. He’s back and on fire and of course they had problems at the beginning of last season that got them off to a bad start in that they couldn’t play home games for a while, plus the depth and competitiveness changes year on year, it’s hard to do a direct comparison, just on points

Come the end of the season I don’t think they’ll finish higher than last year and I’m not sure they’ve recruited players that they can make significant profits on to advance forward again
 
What is it about Coventry?
Look whats happened to Millwall.
Contenders for promotion / play-offs last season!

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Robins is shrewd and as said in others posts they defend a bit more more aggresively and intelligently than us. I think the LC run has cost us points this season - look at the players injured in the Chelsea home game and Port Vale away games.

They also started better than us by investing earlier this season.

Add we changed our recruitment policy in the Summer.

I think it helps them to be located in the middle of England too, its a bit easier to pick up players.
 
This summer (transfermarkt figures in Euros) Coventry raised E38m in fees and spent E30m. We raised E15m and spent E12m. Once you take buying and selling costs into consideration we probably both broke even but they were able to spend 2.5 times as much as us and bought accordingly better players.

We brought in 11 players for the first team squad plus J Jones as a 3rd choice keeper. They brought in 11 first team squad players.

We both suffered from losing several key loan players. Both teams loaned in two players in the summer: us a CM and AM, them a CM and CB.

The massive overhaul led to both teams having a slow start. We had 11 points after 10 games, they had 14.

Their improvement since then comes from Calum O'Hare returning from injury and playing out of his skin. Their big money summer signing, Haji Wright, took about 3 months to adjust with 2 in his first 10 games then 9 in his next 20. Likewise, Sakomoto, no goals or assists in his first 15 games, 7 goals and 2 assists in his next 15. Both of these started firing alongside the return of O'Hare.

Despite all that they still went on a run of 6 games without winning
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Those results look oddly familiar...

They have had relatively few injuries.

In summary. They were able to buy better players. They have had fewer injuries and it is notable that when their key player came back from a long injury they improved once he was match fit again. They have a manager who has been there, done that. They still had a very rocky start. After 15 games, they were in 20th place with 15 points. We were in 12th place on 21 points, 6 points ahead of them. However their injury problems eased while ours got worse. Now, you get the impression that Mark Robins has fashioned a team that is playing to its potential while we have precisely the opposite.

Putting it all together, they bought better players (by spending 2.5 times as much), appear to have a better manager and a better medical team. You could argue that if you take into consideration the injury crisis and having to integrate lower quality players, Carrick has achieved a points total roughly equivalent to Robins at Coventry. Especially if you then look at Coventry buying players in January while we sold two key players.

That's why, right now, it's impossible to tell how good a job Carrick is actually doing.
 
BoroMart said:
They signed two forward to replace the two forwards they lost and spent about 12m on those two alone. I don’t think they’ve improved on last season, they may still finish beneath last years position. I don’t see either of those forwards being great business long term, but they’ve done enough. Ohare is actually the big difference for them
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Coventry lost their two best players and replaced them. They are basically exactly where they were last season without their best players. Last year they finished on 70 points, this year they have 48 from 32 games which over a full season works out at 69.

The yardstick isn't whether they have got better but whether they haven't got worse because last year's achievement got them into the playoffs. You could argue that to improve you would have to spend more to improve your squad but they've got basically a £0 net spend so you would expect no real change (which is what they have had). They would be happy if they have the same final position and qualify for the playoffs. O'Hare isn't the big difference. He has only started 11 of their games because he has been injured which is similar to the 8 he started the previous season.

Compare that to us and we have gone from 75 points last season to a pro rata 61 this season. We didn't need to improve. We needed to stay where we were but we've gone massively backwards. If we had been as good as we were last year we'd be on 51 points now, 3 points above Coventry.

Other teams around us (pro rata performance):
WBA 11 points more
Norwich 7 points more
Hull 13 points more
Preston 6 points more
Sunderland 1 point less
Bristol 4 points more
Watford 4 points less
Millwall 21 point less
Blackburn 16 points less
Cardiff 10 points more

Middlesbrough, Millwall and Blackburn have made huge steps backwards. WBA, Hull, and Norwich have significantly improved. The others have stayed about the same.
 
Bruce said:
This summer (transfermarkt figures in Euros) Coventry raised E38m in fees and spent E30m. We raised E15m and spent E12m. Once you take buying and selling costs into consideration we probably both broke even but they were able to spend 2.5 times as much as us and bought accordingly better players.
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they've spent 2.5x to effectively stand still at around 6th place (*in fact I have them probably finishing 7th). In those terms they haven't been successful. I'm not sure if they've developed more saleable assets either. To invest 30m euro in your squad in the champo and drop a couple of places isn't a sign of good investment.

We've already profited 7-15m on where we started the year and have two very saleable assets of around 40m in Hackney and Rav. So yes we've dropped a bit through injury crisis, late signings and a gap at CF, but the longer term picture is pretty good as we have big FFP headroom, probably bigger than them for next season. I doubt Coventry will go up this year If we have a 5% chance they are on about 10%
 
What Coventry and the likes of Brentford do is make a tidy sum on a player and then search established leagues for another gem as a replacement not scour a pub league on the other side of the world.
 
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