Coventry born striker Gary McSheffrey has given his backing to his manager Andy Thorn, believing him to be the man to lead the club to Championship safety.
The Sky Blues face a tough next few games, all against promotion chasing teams, West Ham, Cardiff and Brighton and points will be hard to secure.
McSheffrey had said that he and the rest of the players are 100% behind Thorn and that he thinks that most of the fans also back the manager despite the poor run of results and being joint bottom of the table.
He said he knows what the fans are going though, having supported the club as a boy, but he is under no illusions as to the size of the job in hand.
Speaking to the CT, McSheffrey said, “I’ve been a fan, I used to sit in the stands at Highfield Road until I was 15 or 16 so I know how passionate they are and I can see things from their point of view, but the players are certainly 100 per-cent behind the manager
“He got us playing some great football when he took over at the end of last season but look at the players we lost in the summer. If they hadn’t been free transfers, we’d probably be talking somewhere between £5-10million, and players like that are almost impossible to replace.
“The young lads who have come in have done really well but it’s very unforgiving at this level and there is a gulf in squad strength between us and the clubs at the top. They’ve been signing players who can’t quite get a game in the Premier League but are top-drawer performers at this level.
“We’re really being tested at the moment and if you look at the next three games you’ve got to say that five or six points from that run would be a tremendous achievement, but we’ve got to be man enough to say that we can get ourselves out of this situation.
"There are a lot of games to come so we mustn’t panic if a gap appears at the bottom. We’ve just got to stay positive, work even harder and hope that we get the rewards.”
“It’s been great to get some of the younger lads on longer term contracts but we need experience, too, and Gary has got that in abundance.
“We are starting to see him get back to full match fitness and sharpness and we have all seen what he is capable of when that happens. He’s got a big part to play this season and it would be great to see him getting back on the goal trail for us.”
McSheffrey admitted he is not having the best of seasons so far saying, “It’s been a stop-start season for me. So far I’ve played two or three games and then I’m out injured for a spell, but I thought my first-half performance at Millwall was probably my best so far this season so I’ve got to build on that and get my fitness levels as high as possible.
“A bit of luck would be helpful. I could have got a touch to a couple of crosses against Millwall and the one that hit the bar could have gone in because sometimes when you get one or two the floodgates open and you go on a really good run.
“It’s the same for the team and it’s hard not to start feeling sorry for yourself when you’re not getting the decisions and the ricochets always seem go against you, but that’s how it is. We’ve got some good kids and when everybody is fit the manager will have some nice healthy decisions to make and we proved that we can play against Southampton on Saturday.
“The minimum we should have at this level is to be able to grind it out, keep our concentration and make sure we don’t get beat, but we switched off a couple of times and all that good work was wasted.
“It was very disappointing but at least we got the fans going for a while, showed them that we’ve still got some pride.”