Gaining automatic promotion to the Premier League is an impressive achievement for any Championship club, made all the more remarkable if it’s done without the aid of parachute payments.
Coventry City are not quite over the line yet, but barring a complete disaster in the next seven games Frank Lampard’s league leaders are all but there, currently sitting 11 points clear of third and fourth placed Ipswich and Millwall.
The Sky Blues have been knocking on the door for a few seasons, making the play-offs in two of their previous three campaigns prior to 2025/26, going agonisingly close in the final against Luton in 2023.
Since then the club have operated smartly in the transfer market, using the big money sales of Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer to replenish the squad with a more rounded and overall higher quality mix of players who are now on the brink of making the big time.
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The question on many a fan’s lips, however, is how many of the current 25 that have helped the club get to this point will survive the summer and be part of next season’s elite group?
How many new players will City need in order, first and foremost, to compete in England’s top division and then hopefully get a foothold and stay up rather than making an immediate return to the second tier like so many yo-yo-ing sides in recent years.
Sunderland, like Nottingham Forest a few years earlier, appear to be bucking that trend but did so by making wholesale changes to their squad after going up via the play-offs. They spent £155m in the summer on 14 new signings. Leeds, who went up as Champions, spent around £100m on ten new recruits.
Doug King has already gone on record as saying he doesn’t want the Sky Blues to lose their “identity” by following a similar path to the Black Cats, insisting he’ll do it the “Cov way”.
But what, exactly, does that mean?
Promotion to the Premier League is said to be worth around £200m for a Championship club, with football finance expert Kieran Maguire insisting that City can expect £110 million from broadcasting rights, as a bare minimum.
“I think it’s £122million,” said King, correcting the TV figures when asked about his plans for the club’s summer spending.
Breaking into a grin, he added: “Not that I’ve looked!”
So how does he and head of recruitment Dean Austin plan to get the balance right by retaining what the club have got and being competitive enough to survive 38 hugely testing matches next season?
“I think that’s our challenge, and senior relevant people will chew that over as to what we should do,” he said, speaking exclusively to CoventryLive.
Coventry City owner Doug King and head of recruitment Dean Austin
Coventry City owner Doug King and head of recruitment Dean Austin
“Leeds (currently four points off the bottom three) went up as champions last season and did it a different way. They did some change but they still have recognisable players who were in the Championship who play for Leeds today.
“Sunderland (now comfortably in 11th spot) finished third last year after having quite a big fall off at the end of the season into the play-offs. I think they got 75/76 points, something like that, and obviously they felt that they had to do a bit more, widespread creation of a football team.
“So everybody’s got to look at their situation and only they will know their players and what they’re trying to achieve, and we’ll do a similar thing.”
One thing’s for sure, King firmly believes that the players who have got the club to this position should not be cast aside, rather, given a chance to see if they can also fulfil their ambitions by stepping up and competing with the best.
Every fan will have their favourites, will have already made a list of those players they believe can form the core of Lampard’s group next season. The likes of Jack Rudoni, Milan van Ewijk, Frank Onyeka (who will become a permanent City player on promotion), Matt Grimes and Haji Wright are among the first names for many.
As for the owner’s stance, he said: “I do think if we go up we’re doing so as a team that’s been top in the league for a large part of the season and, therefore, the players that we have, I feel, are a high level squad of players.
“Obviously, we’ve got Frank Onyeka and those sorts of people who will come in, who’s got Premier League experience.
“Now you don’t know, whatever you think, how they’re going to react or perform in the Premier League. Everybody will make a judgement call on that but until you know and you’ve seen it, I don’t think you can make that call.
“And that’s where my bias is that people who’ve earned, or done great things for our football club and hitting a dream of where they want to go, you can’t suddenly make total wholesale changes to say, ‘well you’re just not good enough, see you later mate.’
“For me, that is maybe the case that there has to be those sorts of decisions made down the line but I don’t know, and therefore I’m not pre-empting them. And therefore everything is done on merits and will be thought through very carefully.”
He added: “This great squad is 11 points ahead of third place and has run this season with a target on their back. So I’ve seen growth and really great development from people that you may have thought were maybe stuck in a certain way.
“So I’m not judging it and that’s why it’s the Cov way, and we’ll sit around it and we’ll decide what we’re going to do.”
Taking into account there will be some natural wastage with out of contract players and loans returning to their parent club, does he have a ball park figure of how many new signings City will need, half a dozen or more, perhaps?
“Obviously, you can work out how many loan players have we got? Rushworth, Mini, Esse who will be going back,” he said.
“There’s an obligation (to buy) Frank so if we do go up Frank will be with us. So three will be gone and obviously there will be some players out of contract (Jamie Allen).
“We’ve obviously got some players out on loan who are coming back, like Norman Bassette (Kaiserslautern) and Kai Andrews is away (Hibernian), so we’ll have a look at it.
“To honest with you, I haven’t even looked at it in any detail. I know you might think I should have done, but I haven’t.”
Head of recruitment Dean Austin has surely looked at the options.
“I’m sure he has,” replied King, “and that’s why he’s where he is.”
How many players and in what positions do you think City need to be competitive in the Premier League? Click HERE to have your say.
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