"Sisu have allowed experienced players to leave, losing the backbone of the team, there is constant change of executives running the club, they say they are losing £500,000 a month yet identify the £100,000-a-month rent as the root of their problems," says John Mutton, Labour leader of the council. "If they cannot return
Coventry City into a successful club, they should go now and let others pick up the pieces."
Tim Fisher, the latest chief executive hired in December by Sisu to try to salvage £30m lost since buying the club as a planned Premier League-returning investment in 2008, accepts that selling more seasoned players last summer – including the centre-half Ben Turner and midfielder Aron Gunarsson, both to Cardiff City – then having to overplay promising young players this season under Andy Thorn as manager has been self-defeating. The club lost £6m in the year to 31 May 2010, its most recently published accounts, and the accounts for 2011, statutorily due on 29 February, have still not been filed. This, explains Fisher, is because Sisu are pondering whether to continue funding the club as a going concern.
That is prompting anxiety not only among fans jaded by a decade of decline, but City's staff, who have seen the swingeing job cuts when clubs fall into administration, while players' wages are protected. Fisher sought to rally the staff
after the 2-0 home defeat by Doncaster Rovers that consigned Coventry to relegation, and says he is striving to keep Sisu committed.
"My key role is to convince the owner to finance this asset," says Fisher, who is a banker specialising in financially "distressed" companies. "Coventry City is a fallen angel, a Premiership brand now in the third tier. The club has an incredibly loyal fan base and I am confident in telling the owners that if they continue to fund it, it will bounce back to the Championship."