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Doug King explains why he sacked Mark Robins and gives update on new Coventry manager search

Owner and Chairman Doug King explains why he sacked Mark Robins and gives an update on the search for the new Coventry manager.

During a Fans Forum, Doug King has explained that it was a fall out between Robins and his assistant Adi Viveash that led to the “dismantling” of the successful coaching set-up at the Championship club.

He added that the decision wasn’t necessarily based on results and the form, instead it was a “divorce” between the two protagonists that guided the club to two promotions and four Wembley appearances over the previous seven years.

And what happens now going forward? He revealed to fans that he had no plan for the future and no immediate successor lined up to replace Robins.

“We’ve received huge amount of CVs from high quality people of which Frank is one,” he told Sky Sports News.

“But the issue is we haven’t done anything on that process because we have been getting through this situation with the forum and focusing on making sure we were accessible and gave answers.

“However, clearly we are in the international break. We’ll be assessing everything and then we’ll work out who is going to make the shortlist, and then we’ll interview.

On how quickly Coventry hope to make an appointment, he added: “If we find the right person and we can all agree on what we want to agree then I think we can go pretty quickly. But if it isn’t clear cut and we need to go deeper into certain things then it may take a bit longer.

“I’m prepared for Rhys Carr to take two or three more games if we can’t get it done by the end of the international break.”

Of the decision to sack Robins: “I didn’t get much sleep that night at all.

“I was talking it through in my mind as to whether it was the right moment and was I right to do it, but frankly, I knew it was the right thing to do.

“I did slightly want to give this club a jolt and say we are going to change some directions. We can’t just say it is all going to get better in the end and we’ll go up the league and be around the play-offs unless we take control of it and we make it happen.

“Obviously, it’s taken everyone at the club and outside by surprise. The reaction has been a little more than I anticipated.

“Honesty, it was unpleasant for me to do that because I really like Mark. I know what he has done here and the respect he has here, and I really wish I hadn’t been in that position.”

FAVOURITES TO BECOME NEW COVENTRY BOSS

Sky Bet – 12 Nov – 9am
Frank Lampard – 1/3
Robbie Keane – 6/1
Matt Bloomfield – 10/1
Lee Carsley – 12/1
Steven Schumacher – 12/1
Rhys Carr – 18/1
John Eustace – 22/1
Nicky Butt – 22/1

Doug King said at the Fans Forum, as per Coventry Telegraph: “Before we get onto why, let me pay my respects to Mark, who I worked with closely for two years,. I am close to the football club, not sitting somewhere in London, I am up here every day. In two years we had some great experiences together and I enjoyed working with him immensely.

“I am very clear with what has happened at Coventry City over the years with the ownership and turmoil that has caused a near bankruptcy, stadium changes… Mark came in in 2017, the club having somehow got ourselves down in League Two, and he did a huge, huge job in getting us back up the leagues.

“He did it on a shoestring, pretty much, and with facilities that were not very good and he over-achieved in that way. And huge respect from all of us as the club and I sent out the message after the decision on Thursday. Listen, I fully understand this is a difficult situation and I fully understand what he has done for this football club and this city and community, but I still made the decision to change the leadership at this point.

“And the truth of the matter is that I could go on and say that 23 points from 23 games, or I could say we have lost nine out of 17 home games or we didn’t play very well yesterday (against Derby). They are disappointing because we have put together a huge deck of players who I think are capable of promotion and certainly being in the top six.

“The reason why I have made the decision is that he (Mark Robins) has dismantled the coaching staff at this football club. I haven’t dismantled it, he has done that. That’s the thing people don’t realise, they think I am doing lots of things with my spider’s web and all these things, and it’s strictly, absolutely not true.”

Explaining further, he added: “What happened is that Mark and Adi Viveash were the heart and soul of this football club, they dragged us up through the leagues and were very successful in that. And then it just seemed that in March/April last year that something went down. You know a simple thing as an article in the Telegraph by Andy Turner about a certain marriage, and a difficult marriage. The guys have been together a long time and I don’t know, I think it provoked something.

“Adi gave another big interview and he wasn’t authorised to do it and then everyone got a bit excited and clearly, the fall-off after the Wolves game was pretty startling. I know everyone said we were knackered after the heroic FA Cup semi-final but the reality was, it looked like something was wrong.

“I had a meeting with both of them individually at the end of the season and I said, ‘Look, I came in here and gave you four year contracts, I want you together because you have shown me that as a team you make it happen here. I am going to get you the deck and you, I hope, will hopefully out perform the way you have out-performed with this deck.

“I told them to take time out, go away, have a holiday and come back recharged because we have got our recruitment in order and we have got pre-season sorted. We have got a performance director, the facilities (at Ryton) with a new gym coming in and we want to really hit the ground running.

“And effectively, I had a phone call from him about two weeks later, where he said, effectively, he could no longer work with Adi Viveash. I was very upset by that because that was the team that had done what we wanted to get done for the football club. It was therefore at huge risk of ‘am I going to get a better coaching set-up to take us forward with the money that I have invested, and with the dreams of where we want to take the football club.’

“Obviously, I was particularly angry about that because I did not want to break that up. Adi Viveash is a hugely skilled coach who develops players, which is my model and the model of the football club.

“And so, weirdly, I was trying to keep it together whereas Mark had made the call that after seven years a divorce was what was needed. As you know, Adi left the football club and we tried to replace him with a head of first team coaching. We interviewed some great candidates but we couldn’t get any over the line and, to be honest, I never even had a deal in front of me to get over the line. But we did interview quite a few talented candidates.

King explained that all wanted to be in charge rather than a number two, which is why they couldn’t get anyone to agree to come in.

“As you know we replaced Dennis Lawrence with George Boateng and Rhys Carr and without getting a head of first team coaching in we were effectively going into pre-season with a limited amount of coaches. Mark made the decision to bring back John Dempster and Mark Delaney as the coaching team to go on the pre-season tour.

“It was unclear how the hierarchy would go there but it seemed to me that he wanted a flat structure. We had a pretty good pre-season, to be fair, we were all at the Everton game and I think that was putting us under a false sense of security of what may occur when we got down to the real battle of trying to get out of this very difficult league.

“We then come to this point where we start badly, it’s a little unclear for all of us how it’s all working. Listen. I am talking here very openly. I have got employees who we are talking about who are fantastic coaches and who I respect very much. You saw what Rhys did at Sunderland and so I am putting a disclaimer on that because they are all fantastic people that this club respects very much.

“I had a meeting with Mark on September the 30th, I think it was, where I made it… Well, I shot him a memo and said to him that he has a few options. And the options were that we either keep it as it is or we look to put some hierarchy in. Or we look to, again, bring a head of first team coaching because I said he needs some balance, it seemed to me. That worked in the past, so we went out again to try to find a head of first team coaching and, again, we couldn’t get anyone through the door.

“The senior team of the club, myself, Dr Claire-Marie Roberts, Dean Austin and Mark met for a first quarter review to look at the situation on October 30, I think it was, and went through all the aspects of the football club. Anyway, it became clear that at this level, with this deck of players, we are lacking an elite coach/tactician to support the manager.

“I wished that we could have got one in for the manager because had we done that then maybe we wouldn’t be having this discussion tonight. But the reality is, I can’t get one in. And I am not going to go and sit through another ten games, trending at one point per game and putting at risk this football club the threat of relegation. I’ll tell you what happens when things go wrong, if you get to Christmas with 26 points the pressure will be triple, the players will be thinking about the summer, ‘the season has gone, we came here for promotion to the Premier League and the big Coventry project – all gone wrong’.

“And it would have got way, way worse and put this football club at risk and that’s why I acted as I did on Thursday.”

Here’s how fans reacted as Doug King explains why he sacked Mark Robins and gives an update on the new Coventry manager search…

@CCLSC: @BBCCWR well that was interesting listening! I don’t really know what to make of it but personally thought Doug King came across reasonably well. Time to move on and see who comes next now. I will back him but he’ll sure have a tough act to follow. #PUSB

@barnsey__15: Think he’s proved a lot of people wrong (me included) with the way he spoke and the honesty of his answers. I know people will still put their tinfoil hats on but that doesn’t sound like a man that’s happy with having to sack the clubs greatest ever manager

@Moseley3_: Fair play DK. Don’t agree with the decision but now understand why it was made. People ain’t going to like this and as much as he has thrown Mark under the bus – this is a very interesting interview Confirmed the Robins Adi fall out. Confirmed the decision was on his mind for a while. Think Robins isn’t tactically good enough to change our form. I am praying that Mark responds to this so we get both sides. I’m also stunned that they don’t have a plan for who will replace him – that’s bizarre to me. Very intriguing. Fair fuckin play to Doug King here. He’s answered absolutely everything thrown at him and you can thoroughly tell this is extremely emotional for him. He will never be forgiven for Robins imo. But I can now see why the decision was made. Time to back the squad “deck”

@SBAconnor: Thought he spoke very well. Obviously frustrated the fans can’t understand his points and ambitions due to emotional attachments to the one constant at the club

@toughy92: Communication with the fans – shouldn’t be taken for granted. King should be commended for giving MR backing most managers dream of, not annihilated for engineering his exit. Robins is #1 for me given his working conditions, but was ultimately the architect of his own downfall

@ccfcsince97: Least he had the balls to come out and answer questions. People demanded answers and he came out and provided them weather we agree or not is another thing but fair play to DK

@ThatCovPod: Overall I liked that from Doug King. Pretty bold stuff but hopefully honest and clears up a lot of questions. Don’t understand how we weren’t able to get a number two in and didn’t like him saying the timing of the sacking was to shock people. But mostly good stuff. #PUSB

@PaulCra47154521: Credit to Doug for fronting up and being honest. Some won’t like or accept what he said, but we have to move on now. Get a new head coach asap please. But make it the right person. Easy eh?!

@Dave_Unwin67:
I have listened to every word of that and a couple of things stand out.
1. I think he was being honest; if he wasn’t he’s wide open for slander/libel and he’s smarter than that.
2. The AV/MR split was a surprise but explains a lot.
Time to back the new guy and move on.
PUSB

@ManuelOlly: As hard as it is seeing Robins go, Doug is spot on with what he is saying. 2 sides to every story but I can’t see him lying about what happened with robins and Adi and for robins positives we have looked tactically poor this season which Doug warned him about when Adi went #PUSB

@andy_cov93: The chapter is now closed. We move on as a fan base and as a club. I now look forward to seeing who we appoint and what they see our squad can do and what they add to it in January. 2025 has potential to be a breath of fresh air and a very exciting year. #PUSB

@sufcpaul17: Sacking Mark Robins, proven Championship manager, for League One Frank is absolutely ridiculous. Hope for the owners sake you lot go down and see the mistake you made.

@RyanSkyBlue1: Got to say fair play to DK that was a shocking revelation to say the least and something you’d be daft to lie about as players probably listened too so it’s going to alienate them all against him if untrue, also you could hear emotions in his voice and not corporate bullshit

@ethan_chatsball: All I’ve gotta say is fair play to DK for actually answering tough questions. I don’t know what to believe from what was said but I will wait till I hear both sides of the story to make a concrete opinion on this. We need to back the new manager when they come in. #PUSB

@Samuelw95453240: After listening to this I can kinda of understand why they sacked MR obvs there’s 2 sides to every story I just hope they appoint a new Manager that can be just as good as him but I do feel like the players are the ones who are also partly to blame with how inconsistent they are?

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