Luis Binks - The Athletic article (1 Viewer)

Luis Binks has not taken the direct route to playing senior football in England.

After coming through the ranks in Tottenham Hotspur’s academy, the 22-year-old central defender has been unafraid to spread his wings in spells on both sides of the Atlantic and, this season, on loan at Coventry City.

As Mark Robins’ side chase a play-off place for the second season — having booked an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United after a remarkable win over Wolverhampton Wanderers — Binks has played an increasing role.

Bouncing back from penalty heartbreak in last season’s Championship play-off final against Luton Town at Wembley has looked easy for Coventry — even if adjusting to the challenges of Championship football as a loan player with overseas experience has been a learning curve for Binks.

He left Spurs aged 18 in 2020 to pursue regular senior football, which brought stints in MLS with Montreal Impact and in the top two tiers of Italian football with Como and Bologna, who are Binks’ parent club.

“The Championship is very different,” Binks says. “MLS is very frantic and not as physical as the Championship — but then in Italy, it’s very tactical and slower.

“Coming to the Championship, it’s got everything: it’s hectic, tactical, physical. It’s my first year in England playing professionally. I was at Tottenham but that was youth football, so you can’t really compare it. So, in terms of coming here, it’s been a case of getting to grips with it because even though I’ve grown up watching it, being in it is a different thing.

“I knew it was going to be tough at the start because I was coming into something totally unknown. It’s one of the best — if not the best — leagues I’ve played in.

“Going to Italy, you understand the game more tactically. Five days before a game, you’ll be working on shape whereas, in England, it’s not like that: we focus on different things. If I were to go back to Italy in the future, being in the Championship has helped me become a better all-round player because you need more than just being tactically aware. Everything in the Championship is so much more frantic.”

Under Robins and assistant Adi Viveash, who worked in Chelsea’s academy, Coventry have built a reputation as a successful place to send players on loan.

In recent years, they have benefited from the contributions of Ian Maatsen, Callum Doyle and Jonathan Panzo, as well as Viktor Gyokeres and Ben Sheaf, who both later signed permanent deals, with Binks among the latest batch of recruits last summer.

Replacing the talents of Gyokeres (sold to Sporting Lisbon for a reported £17million) and Gustavo Hamer (sold to Sheffield United for £15m) was always likely to pose a challenge but the arrivals of Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Ellis Simms and USMNT international Haji Wright made for another window of smart recruitment by the club.

Coventry’s reputation was a draw for Binks, with their entertaining brand of football fuelled by the desire to go one better than last season providing extra motivation to make his loan a success. His debut against Wimbledon in the Carabao Cup in August was the first of 19 appearances this season for the former England Under-19 international, who also represented Scotland at under-18 level.

“It’s fun to be involved in,” says Binks, who spoke with The Athletic as part of the EFL’s promotion of its ‘youth development week’. “With Adi coming from Chelsea, he’s got a past of working with young players and the manager has been at the club for a number of years. It’s good to come to a place with stability because last year at Como, I had three managers (including Cesc Fabregas, who he also played alongside).

“You look at Coventry and see how stable they are, and that helps. When you’re working here, you know where you stand. The club is definitely going in the right direction.

“Off the pitch, the club is in a great place. The training ground getting done up and all the players and staff are good people, so it’s on the up. I looked at them last year and saw they had quite a few young boys and loan players who did well, so it’s obviously in their model to try to develop players with the coaches they have here and the manager.

“I looked at that and thought it would be a good place for me to develop. Coming off the back of a play-off final, you hope the club will be back up there again and fighting to compete. This was a chance (for me) to come back to England to a good league, and Coventry have got a great history and are a big club.”

The last time Kent-born Binks played in England was as part of Spurs’ youth setup and his decision to leave the club in pursuit of regular football in 2020 was a brave decision but, he feels, a beneficial one.

“I didn’t want to stay at Tottenham and just be in the under-23s because you’re playing against kids,” he says. “I don’t think that helps you develop much, so I was big on the idea of playing senior games from a young age because you gain way more by doing that.

“I explained that to them, that I wanted to stay at the club but go on loan, but they wanted me to stay and be in the under-23s. I wanted to go and play from a young age and test myself, so I went to MLS and played pretty much every game, which helped me on and off the pitch because it’s not the usual path. To be that far away from home at that age is unusual.

“It was during Covid, so we had to move to Florida for two months and we played every team there in a tournament, and then six months later, we moved to New York because we couldn’t travel from Canada (to the U.S. due to restrictions). Then we moved to Miami — so it wasn’t the traditional MLS season but you were still playing against the same teams and players.

“It surprised me because I had the perception that it was more of a league where players go to retire — but once I got there, there were so many South Americans who come up from Brazil or Argentina. It’s not as easy as people think.”

Arriving at each of his new clubs with an open mind has benefited Binks, who came to Coventry with the simple target of playing as much football as possible. With just nine games left to achieve a top-six finish in the Championship, the pressure is on — and this is a time to enjoy, as they proved in snatching a 3-2 victory at Molineux with two goals deep into added time.

“The manager has been here in League Two, League One and last year making the play-offs, so he knows and has experienced this before,” says Binks. “The advice he’s given us is spot-on.

“You have to enjoy this pressure because that’s why you’re in football. You want to be playing in the best games and the play-off final — if you can get there — is one of the best games in football.

“You have to embrace it and enjoy the challenge because you don’t know how many times you’ll be in this situation. Everyone’s excited.”