Coventry City backroom news from CoventryLive as Sky Blues receive ‘high calibre’ applicants for head coach role as Mark Robins ponders promoting from within his existing staff
Mark Robins says he’s making progress in his search for a new head coach at Coventry City following the shock departure of Adi Viveash.
The manager’s former assistant and first team coach left the club at the start of the month with his exit announced just five minutes before two new senior coaches were unveiled, with former favourite George Boateng joining the backroom team along with individual specialist Rhys Carr from Wolves.
The club have since advertised for the newly created role of Head of First Team Coaching to work closely with Robins and the senior team – with the manager revealing that City have received a number of applications from ‘high calibre’ candidates. The 54-year-old, however, admits that he is tempted to look closer to home at the pool of talent he already has with his existing coaching staff.
Under-21s development coach John Dempster, you may recall, stepped up to fill in for Dennis Lawrence when he left for MLS side Minnesota United in March. Under-18s coach Mark Delaney then stepped up to the 21s but, as was clear for all to see at Stevenage on Tuesday night, appears to have taken a more active role with the first team in recent weeks.
Spotted on several occasions on the touchline helping to organise substitutes and deep in conversation in the technical area with Robins on one occasion during the game, the 48-year-old was later seen having a lengthy chat after the game with head of recruitment Dean Austin.
Delaney – a fully committed blood and thunder right-back who played more than 150 Premier League games for Aston Villa – earned newfound fondness with Villa fans when he returned to Villa Park as a coach and did good things with the academy teams over a 14-year spell, before leaving to become lead professional development phase coach, looking after the 18s at Coventry in September last year.
While at Villa he stepped in to take the first team for one game during Dean Smith’s managerial reign when the former Villa boss tested positive for Covid.
Asked how his search for a new head coach is going, Robins told CoventryLive: “I have no news at the minute but I have made some headway in certain areas and certainly hope it’s sorted before the start of the season.”
Asked whether there’s an opportunity to promote from within or if he’s looking outside for the ideal candidate, he said: “Umm, it has to be the right person. Obviously I have got to weigh things up because if I bring somebody in from outside the building you have got a fair amount of unknowns. And at this stage I want everything to settle down.
“We’ll wait and see what happens but there are some really talented people inside this building and I have always looked internally as well. But there have been some really high calibre applicants as well.”
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