Coventry’s play-off final defeat on penalties to Luton denied the club a return to top-flight football for the first time since 2001. While the wounds are still raw, manager Mark Robins will be hoping his team can bounce back and make that final step.
Having penned a new contract in May of this year that will keep Robins at the club until 2027, he will be confident of improving on last term’s fifth-place finish and securing automatic promotion this time round.
But how likely is it that Coventry will go up this year?
What the Bookmakers are Saying
One of the best ways to gauge a team’s chances of promotion is by checking across a range of betting sites. Bookmakers employ a team of experts to study leagues and teams to provide the most accurate odds possible, so their predictions are usually fairly trustworthy.
In the last 30 years, betting on football matches has shown significant growth and betting site operators offer an extensive range of markets. As the UK’s most popular sport, the growth of internet gambling has made the football betting market even more popular (source: https://www.safebettingsites.com/). So, you can now find odds on which team will be promoted or demoted from a league, rather than just who’s going to win a match. And at present, Coventry is considered eight favourites for promotion at odds of around 8/1. These odds reflect the inauspicious start to the season made by the team who find themselves in mid-table with a lot of draws under their belt.
Odds of 33/1 place the team as relative outsiders to win the Championship outright. With teams like Leeds and Leicester dropping down from the Premiership this year, it does look unlikely that Coventry will be in a position to challenge them.
Coventry Ins and Outs
Reaching the play-off final last season was a tremendous achievement for a team that found itself languishing in the EFL League One just a few years before. Promotion in the 2019/20 season saw Coventry return to the Championship where they have been impressive.
How a club conducts their transfer business in the summer will typically dictate the kind of season they face ahead. Coventry has lost a couple of big players, but their signings could help them make that next step. The talented Swede Viktor Gyökeres moved to Sporting Lisbon for around £20 million while Gustavo Hamer made the move to Premiership new boys Sheffield United for close to £15 million.
Robins was able to reinvest these funds in his playing squad and snapped up the American international forward Haji Wright from Antalyaspor for £7.7 million. This transfer fee makes Wright the most expensive signing in the club’s history by beating the £6.5 million signing of Craig Bellamy in 2000.
Wright is joined at the club by the 6ft 3 striker Ellis Simms from Everton. Simms had enjoyed loan spells at Blackpool, Hearts, and Sunderland before making the permanent move to Coventry for an undisclosed fee believed to be slightly lower than the Wright transfer.
Other important additions include centre backs Liam Kitching from Barnsley and Bobby Thomas from Burnley, full-back Milan van Ewijk from Heerenveen, and Japanese international Tatsuhiro Sakamoto from KV Oostende.
Coventry’s Start to the 2023/24 Campaign
Any team that makes a number of signings in the summer can take a bit of time to find their feet, and Coventry’s start to this season is indicative of this.
An opening day defeat to newly relegated Leicester followed by a poor EFL cup loss to AFC Wimbledon were followed by an impressive 3-0 home victory against Middlesbrough that saw Haji Wright net his first goal for the club.
A series of draws against Swansea, Sunderland, Watford, and Hull indicate the club are close to retaining the form that fired them to the playoff final last season.
If Wright can start firing and Robins learns how to transform these draws into victories, Coventry will soon start climbing the table.
The English Championship is widely recognised as being one of the most competitive leagues in the world. This means that even a slow start can be turned around with teams above likely to drop points throughout the year.
