CHANGE HAD TO BE MADE
The sacking of Aidy Boothroyd as Coventry City manager this morning didn’t really come as a total surprise. A quick read of the replies to City Board member Leonard Brody who had tweeted for views on the one thing that Coventry City should change, gave a groundswell of opinion that Aidy Boothroyd was no longer the man for the job or looking at the frustration and disappointment on the faces of City supporters leaving the Ricoh Arena on Saturday said it all.
Mr Boothroyd’s appointment, which was made by Ray Ranson, whilst other board members were on holiday, failed to galvanise the City supporters into buying season tickets and his bringing of Marlon King to the club, gave some the excuse to not to go to matches.
Any manager of Coventry City has to work within a strict budget under SISU rules. His predecessor Chris Coleman did that quite well and was even under budget at the time of his dismissal but Boothroyd came in and proceeded to spend all of his budget as soon as possible.
He certainly was not frugal with the cash he had, bringing in his own PA and dispensing with one of the most experienced Manager’s Secretary’s in the business as well as backroom staff like Martyn Pert who also has bitten the bullet today.
His other spending of things like team coaches for the friendlies at Nuneaton and Hinckley and overnight stays in hotels for short trips amongst other things, meant that eventually, having blown his budget, he was unable to bring anyone in on loan to boost the squad at a time when change was much needed.
With crowds dropping off and the club whose income streams at the Ricoh Arena are limited anyway, forced to increase Pat Abel’s scheme of encouraging the locals schools to attend home matches and take attendances to the 15,000 when there are probably no more than 9,000 full paying customers, there was not going to be any extra money for players.
Questions must also be raised about some of the players Aidy Boothroyd brought into the club and you have to stay that bringing in Roy O’Donovan who was thrown out of the club as a youngster, to have him sat on the bench all season, is hardly a sound business decision.
On the playing front, let’s be honest, we were hardly playing brilliantly when things were going right. City were too often scraping results in what is a poor division and playing some of the worst football we have seen for a good few years.
As soon as the injuries to key players like Ben Turner who now could be out for the rest of the season, Sammy Clingan etc, started to happen, Boothroyd had nothing in the squad to replace key players and defeats started to happen.
The same happened to Boothroyd at Colchester last season. The U’s were nailed on certs for promotion when he took over but they dropped from second to eighth under his charge and we had plenty of emails from Colchester fans saying how pleased they were that he had gone.
When you lose a few, getting back to winning ways is hard and winning one game in sixteen matches is not acceptable to any Coventry City supporter and it begs the question as to was Mr Boothroyd getting the most out of his players?
Certainly up front he wasn’t. The stat that City have had around 450 efforts on goal and only scored 38 times this season shows that he is not getting the most from those he has chosen to play up front and with City leaking goals, one goal is never enough, meaning that the club are in a relegation battle.
If we were to be relegated and under Mr Boothroyd, it was hard to see where the next win was coming from, I don’t think it would have been too long before SISU pulled the plug and we were out of business completely.
Sacking a manager with the frequency the Sky Blues have over the last twenty years does not bring stability but we need someone who will takeover what is very much a poisoned chalice and get the most out of the players he has available to ensure that through team work and every player giving their all, Coventry City can start to move back up the table.
.