New Coventry City manager Tony Mowbray has said that the Sky Blues are a sleeping giant.
Speaking to Sky Sports' Rob Dowsett, Mowbray said: “I guess I took a sabbatical.
“I needed a break. I hadn’t had one for a decade, and the family suffered. So, my wife and I decided I’d take some time to get to know my kids. We went on a few holidays, I went on the school run, kicked a ball about with them in the garden, and it was great.
“But then after Christmas, I started getting itchy feet. I wanted to get back in the game that I love.”
Mowbray, who had to clean up the mess at Middlesbrough and Celtic left by Gordon Strachan and ironically joins a club which was put on a slippery slope down the leagues by Strachan and said: “I see the way English football is going. It’s not easy these days for managers to get back into work once they’ve lost their job. Not that I’ve been looking for a year or so.
"With so many foreign owners of football clubs in the top two divisions in England, it’s particularly hard; managers seem to be just numbers these days – they get a few weeks, then they’re out. There are a lot of good coaches out there who can’t get work.
“I see Coventry as a big football club – something of a sleeping giant. Their first game back in the area, against Gillingham, they had 27,500 fans there. We just have to light the blue touch paper if we can.