SUMMER signing Jim O’Brien has revealed a series of talks with a host of former Sky Blues stars encouraged him to join Steve Pressley’s revolution at the Sky Blues.
The 26-year-old wide man became Pressley’s second signing of the summer after joining from Barnsley on a two-year deal at the beginning of July.
And he said the wise words of a former team mate and Pressley himself made the decision to join the Sky Blues a no brainer.
“Pressley phoned me as soon as the season finished so I knew he wanted me straight away and he made his intentions pretty clear so that was a nice feeling.
“Martin Cranie had loads of nice things to say about the club. I was asking him about the area, where to stay, where’s good to go and he was telling me that it’s a great club it’s just had a couple of problems which I knew about anyway.
“I know a couple of lads who have played here before, Lukas Jutkiewicz and Richard Keogh, and they’ve got nothing but good words to say about the club.
“The lads at Barnsley congratulated me on my move because they know it’s a good club.
“The manager was on at my agent a few times in the summer about getting me down. I think Pressley knew that once I came down and had a look at the setup it would be an easy decision.
“So he was a bit eager to get me down but timing never fit in with that because I was in Scotland so it wasn’t until the day before I signed when I came down.
“In the end it was a long decision but it was an easy one.”
O’Brien also revealed how he had reservations about joining following the club’s bitter dispute with the council over the Ricoh Arena.
“I’m very aware of the current situation at the club.
“I was on the internet a lot over the summer looking at the scenario with what’s going on. I kept asking the manager what was going on.
“But when I first came down to look at the training ground and the setup here it was great.
“It’s good because when you’re training here at Ryton every day you don’t really hear a lot about it – you just get on with your job.
“The management, the staff and the players are just getting on with it. It’s not really having much of an effect.
Obviously we’d like to be back at the Ricoh – that’s a big priority for the club.”
O’Brien is already enjoying life with his new club and he is hopeful of completing a full pre-season without injury so he can hit the ground running at the start of the new campaign which starts with a trip to Bradford on August 9.
“I want to pin down a first team place as soon as possible and I think that’s why it’s so important to get a full pre-season.
“When it was getting towards the time when everyone was going back to their clubs I was starting to get a little bit of an itch because you don’t really want to miss too much.
“It’s tough to motivate yourself in the summer so I didn’t want to miss too much.
“To get a good pre-season and stay away from injury would be great – that’s everybody’s aim here at the club and then I just want to hit the ground running.”
