Looks like TM wants to keep the big fella.....
By Andy Turner | 13/04/15
Tony Mowbray wants to build a team around Reda Johnson subject to the manager and influential player staying at Coventry City beyond the end of the season.
Although the Sky Blues boss’s future is still to be decided, the 51-year-old is already making plans for next term and they include getting the strapping defender to sign a new contract.
There are major concerns about his appearance record but Mowbray believes he could be the manager to get 40-odd games a season out of the 27-year-old if he can convince him to stay at the Ricoh Arena.
“Unfortunately it’s out of our hands,” said the City boss; “it’s going to be Reda’s decision rather than my decision, which is a bit frustrating and yet that’s the reality of it.
“In this league more than a lot of leagues this team needs a dominant, powerful centre-half and he fits the bill. And yet, of course, you would expect and want him to play 40-odd games a season not 20-odd. Hopefully something can get sorted out.
“Let’s wait and see if he shows his fitness but the potential is that Championship clubs will be knocking on his agent’s door and asking the questions – if that’s the case it’s out of our hands and we can’t do anything about it.
"The boy has to earn a living and if he chooses to do that somewhere else we have to take that on the chin.
“But is he a player we’d like to try to progress and build a club with? I think he’s the type of player we would like to do that with.
“I like to think my relationship with him over the weeks I’ve been here is strong and there’s mutual respect.
"I appreciate his talents as a footballer and he sees that I treat footballers like men. And I like to think that he feels that if he took his chance to stay at Coventry that he’d enjoy his time here and be respected, and hopefully we can benefit each other.
“But let’s see what happens. It’s in his hands and a decision will be known when the season finishes.”
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Asked is he’s confident that given the right training and fitness programme Johnson can play more than 20 games a season, Mowbray said: “Of course. A leopard generally doesn’t change his spots and if you look back he’s only played 20-odd games a season over the last five or six years, so why is it going to change?
“Well, hopefully it’s going to change and I’d be that manager that sits here and says we can get that to change because we’d closely monitor what he does in training every day.
“It’s something that he’s got to look at and we’ve have to look at because he’s one of those players who trains to a maximum every day, every tackle in a five-a-side or small sided game or a bit of shape we’re doing is like a prisoner to him.
Reda Johnson and Jordan Willis celebrate the win
"And sometimes you have to take the intensity out of training for people like that because that’s the only way they know; to train like they play, which is why you pick up injuries, knocks and strains.
“Sometimes you don’t put them into the situations and they might not like it if they are told they have to jog around the pitch today rather than join in a small-sided game but, ultimately, for people like that it’s about Saturday afternoon and Tuesday nights, and they have to have their boots on, their name on their back and be ready to play for the badge on the front.
“That’s where we have to go with a player like Reda because I have to say with someone of his power, stature and quality it would be a huge aid for this football team if we were at the other end of the table if he played every game.”