Rod Liddle has done a piece in the Times as well……
Sacking Mark Robins bad enough. Courting Frank Lampard even more baffling
Ending tenure of the EFL’s longest serving manager at Coventry brings to mind Birmingham’s treatment of John Eustace before Wayne Rooney came in. And we all know what happened next
Rod Liddle
Sunday November 10 2024, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
Ihave been trying to find somebody in the country who thinks it was a really good idea on the part of Coventry City to sack Mark Robins, but I haven’t found one yet. The verdict seems to be unanimous and it is beginning to look like this year’s most stupid managerial sacking, with the distinct whiff of last year’s debacle at St Andrews when John Eustace was sacked to make way for Wayne Rooney and hence, almost ineluctably, relegation for Birmingham City.
OK, Birmingham were in a play-off spot when Eustace was sacked, while Coventry were in 17th when Robins got the bullet last week — and separated from the relegation places only on goal difference. But these are early days and Coventry were beginning to put together some decent performances, with consecutive wins against Luton Town and Middlesbrough before a narrow defeat away to Derby County. They were not in serious danger just yet.
And in any case, this is to focus solely on the first quarter of this season and ignore the quite remarkable progress Robins had already brought to Coventry under sometimes the most trying of circumstances. I suppose there is no longer any sentiment in football, still less a sense of gratitude or loyalty — but even from a purely pragmatic basis, to ignore Robins’s achievements in all three divisions of the English Football League, as well as the FA Cup, seems a little foolish.
Robins understood the club and the fans and they in turn reciprocated. If it is true that the at present out-of-work former England midfielder Frank Lampard is the favourite for the vacancy then this makes the similarities to the Rooney appointment at Birmingham all the closer. What’s Frank’s record like?
Robins was the longest-serving manager in the EFL, having lasted precisely seven years, eight months and one day — only Pep Guardiola has had a greater longevity in England. When Robins took over, Coventry had been in the doldrums ever since a profound financial crisis, occasioned by the hedge-fund monkeys Sisu Capital, reduced the club to a nomadic existence, playing their home games at Northampton Town, Birmingham City and, for one fixture, at Burton Albion. Robins got the club promoted from the bottom tier and a second successive promotion followed.
Since then they have made steady progress — 18th, then 12th, then fifth in 2022-23 and only a penalty kick away from a return to the Premier League. Last season they dropped back a little to ninth, but only after a final furlong in which they picked up only one point from their past five games. This was presumably a consequence of their magnificent exertions in the FA Cup, when they pulled off the greatest comeback in that trophy’s history in the semi-final against Manchester United and were denied a visit to Wembley only by a reliably stupid VAR decision.
Robins had reconnected the club with their fans after years in the doldrums
PHOTO BY MIKE HEWITT/GETTY IMAGES
The supporters seem united in their appalled shock — so too Coventry’s illustrious former players. The former long-serving goalkeeper Steve Ogrizovic said: “The sun has been shining on Coventry and they got back into the Championship and along the way there were some great memories for people. The stadium is full now and it wasn’t when Mark Robins first came to the club.” Well, no, mate. There wasn’t even a stadium.
It’s only fair to add that the owner Doug King, a local businessman, deserves a share of the plaudits for Coventry’s recent successes — not least the stability he brought to the club after the years of misery and corrosive, expensive lawsuits under Sisu. He has had the good sense to stick with Robins for a lengthy period of time, too, even if the eventual sacking was precipitous.
Coventry players reflect on their play-off defeat by Luton in another Wembley outing under Robins
But does he really think that Frank Lampard is the man to return Coventry to the years of glory they enjoyed in the 1970s and 80s? I suppose we might say that Lampard did a half-decent job at Derby County followed by a reasonable stint at Chelsea. But he was not much missed by the Everton faithful after his year on Merseyside, having been dismissed halfway through the 2022-23 season with Everton languishing in 19th place in the table.
Then followed his six-week caretaker spell at Chelsea, where he managed to achieve one win in 11 games. Nobody of any consequence has come knocking on his door this past year or so. Good players do not necessarily make good managers — I thought that was understood by now? In fact it almost follows that the more gilded the player, the worse he will be at managing a football club. It is usually the also-rans who succeed, the players who have had to struggle to make the most of sometimes limited ability. You might say that Robins is the perfect example of that — a Manchester United player when the team was not at its best and who never quite made it to the full England side.
