Doug King ‘excited’ as he spells out Coventry City’s New Year target

Owner Doug King of Coventry City has been discussing his first year in control of the football team and what he wants the Sky Blues to accomplish in the second half of the Championship season.

Doug King, who expressed his excitement about Coventry City’s potential to battle for promotion in the final 20 games of the season, reiterates the club’s goal of making the Championship play-offs once more.

Despite a slow start to the season, the Sky Blues’ owner acknowledged that the team “failed a little bit” in acclimating the new players to their new surroundings. However, following a good holiday season in which they picked up 10 points out of a possible 12 to move up to eighth place in the league, just three points behind sixth, Mark Robins’ team is now well-positioned to push on toward May.

When asked how he felt about his first year at the club by talkSPORT anchor Jim White, King responded, “Pretty thrilling, to be fair.” It goes without saying that we had a fantastic run that led us to the May play-off final and to our desired destination. It obviously didn’t come to pass. That is existence. After undergoing significant rebuilding in the summer, the boys have bonded incredibly well over the last ten games or so, and we’re in a strong position going into 2024.

When asked if he had encountered any surprises or anything unexpected during his first year, he responded, “There has been a lot to get through and process through the turnover we had in the summer.” Though I think we have some really good players, there is always room for improvement as it relates to settling them in and getting them used to the surroundings.

The one thing I feel like we struggled with a little bit was that, but other than that, I think we’re progressing well and haven’t encountered too many problems. I’ll put it this way: we’re working quickly to improve the experience at the stadium in conjunction with Frasers Group, and we’re also working quickly at the training field. But I believe the best course of action is to think very carefully in the face of all the rapidity.

King responded, “Yes, I think that’s a good point,” when asked if it was a matter of identifying the priorities in the first 12 months early on and then doing everything in his power to achieve them. There are a lot of things you can do, but for us, the most important thing was to focus on the success of our first team. Everything else falls into place after that is achieved. And it’s challenging to grasp it.

We want to improve all aspects of our efforts to achieve that goal, including our processes and structure. We recently hired a senior performance director, and we are working to ensure that our structure and setup are optimal to provide us with the best chance of success. “We see who has come down into our league – the parachute payments still skew it – and it’s really difficult to get out.”

King was questioned about the remainder of the season and whether the play-offs were the current goal.

“Yes, and we weren’t doing as well as we would have hoped if you look back to November and the third international break,” he stated. “I believe that although we were playing well, we weren’t scoring. We’ve had a fantastic run and are now, I believe, in a position where we can really pick it up. If we keep up our current pace, we can definitely finish in the top six in this league. I’m excited because we know what it takes because we accomplished it last year.

He added: “It was a really great effort from everyone during a busy period over December and Christmas / New Year to get us in this position and that’s all we could have asked, I guess, at this point of the season.”

Is enjoying club ownership conceivable, then?

“It’s obvious,” he remarked. If it was impossible to enjoy, why would you do it? If you follow the proper procedures… After the players are placed where we desire, the management group and Mark (Robins) work together to accomplish our goals. Everything is absolutely out of my control until I sit down to play football at three o’clock or whatever hour we’re playing.

As I watch it, it’s amazing. Hopefully, it will be a fantastic game, and I’m interested to see how our club and its players are progressing. It brings me joy to witness our youthful squad consistently getting better every week. Okay, so yeah, I really enjoy it. I’m up for it and hoping that we can kick-on a little bit more.”