Tony Mowbray has praised the job Mark Robins has done in 'rebuilding' Coventry City against a backdrop of off-field turmoil and guiding the club from the fourth tier to the Championship. Coventry have endured years of problems under their previous owners SISU, resulting in the club being forced to leave their Ricoh Arena home and play its home fixtures at Northampton Town for a spell and later at Birmingham City.
Sunderland boss Mowbray knows all about the difficulties behind the scenes at Coventry having spent 18 months in charge of the Sky Blues between March 2015 and September 2016, during which time he led the club to safety in League One when it was in danger of dropping into the fourth tier, and then in his only full season in charge to within five points of making the play-offs. After Mowbray left, the club struggled under his successor Russell Slade and when Robins was then installed in March 2017 he could not prevent the club dropping into League Two, but Robins subsequently led the club to promotion to League One and then, at the second attempt, to promotion to the Championship.
Coventry have since been bought by local businessman Douglas King and have begun to find some boardroom stability, but Mowbray says Robins did a fantastic job to keep producing results during the difficult years. "Mark Robins is an amazing coach and a lovely human being, a lovely guy," said Mowbray, who returns to Coventry this lunchtime with Sunderland.
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"I've managed Coventry and it wasn't chaos. We had so many amazing loan players - Adam Armstrong who scored 20 goals two years on the bounce, I took Ryan Kent from Liverpool who's now at Glasgow Rangers, Jacob Murphy from Norwich who is now at Newcastle United, Joe Cole from Aston Villa, I had James Maddison as a young kid coming through from Leicester. It was an amazing team and we had an amazing time.
"But those loan players have to go back and we were left with a youth team, basically. So what Mark has achieved is remarkable, really.
"They did go down the leagues not long after I had left but he has rebuilt the football club. Has it [the job Robins has done] gone under the radar? Not under the football people's radar, although it might have gone under everyone else's.
"What you do is go into the trenches with your team. You try give them as much information as you can, they are professional players, you are the coach, and you have to create a siege mentality in that whatever happens with the executives, the men in suits, whatever the decision is about whether we can play this weekend, we have to be ready and prepared. I'm pretty sure that's what he has done."
The season before Mowbray took over, Coventry spent part of the 2013-14 season playing at Northampton but were back at what was then known as the Ricoh Arena - now the Coventry Building Society Arena - by the time he was in charge. Mowbray said: "Amid all of the problems that Coventry have had over the years, they have got a new owner now and yet the club doesn't own the stadium - Mike Ashley owns it now - and that has always been a problem.
"The season before I went there, they had been at Northampton playing their home matches. The [CBS Arena] is a fantastic venue and the club has a fanbase - if you're of an age as I am, Coventry are a big club.
"I remember the 1987 FA Cup final [win against Tottenham] and Keith Houchen's diving header. Part of the reason I took that job was because of the history of that club.
"It's a great club and the manager is doing an amazing job. It's probably on a journey, if they get the right investment they will get where they want to be eventually."
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