Coventry City's latest manager Aidy Boothroyd has started his reign at The Ricoh with the usual rhetoric espoused by newly installed managers. It is rhetoric that will be music to the ears of the long suffering fans, but only if they believe it.
Bothroyd has issued the usual hopes, desires and promises of promotion, success and working hard to achieve the aim of a berth in the promised land of The Premiership.
Of course we will all have to wait until August and the start of the new season to see if the new man at the helm of the notoriously wayward ship that is Coventry City will be able to steer a steady course to the top part of The Championship, or whether it will still wallow around in what Boothroyd described as the doldrums at the wrong end of the table.
Boothroyd has done just that it in the past with Watford. He took over at the club languishing perilously close to the drop zone with the brief to maintain Championship football at Vicarage Road and succeeded. The following season he guided Watford to the play off finals where his side beat Leeds united 3-0 and to the big time in The Premier League.
It was a short lived dream and relegation back to the Championship followed. Hopefully lessons will have been learnt from this and if Coventry City emulate Watford and reach The Premiership under Boothroyd he and the board will strengthen the squad sufficiently to keep the club in the top flight for more than one season.
Boothroyd took his relegated team to the play offs again in their first season back in The Championship, but this time lost to the eventual winners Hull City.
So back to Coventry and the hopes of the long suffering fans of the Sky Blues that Bothroyd will deliver the goods. There are many fans unhappy at the appointment, a few fans hold the opposite views, but most of the fans have agreed they will get behind the new man and offer him their support despite him not being their favoured choice.
As for the man himself, he has spoken about the club and his vision of the future of things Sky Blue. He touched on the fact that City have had 14 managers in the past twenty years and the lack of consistency and continuity and he hopes he can help to change that.
Boothroyd said, “One of the many reasons I wanted to come here is that I think the club has the potential to go on and do good things and I want to be part of that,” he explained. At this point in the club’s history it’s a new era, a new regime."
"Clubs work in cycles and I hope that Coventry have had their time in the doldrums and it’s time for us to come again. I want to be the best that I can be as a manager, keep improving and keep pushing up the table to get to where everyone wants to get to the promised land.”
The reason Boothroyd is now Coventry City's manager is down to the fact that Chris Coleman lost his job because the team finished the last three seasons in 19th, 17th and 21st places, something not lost on the Boothroyd, who said, “If we want to improve on that we’ve obviously got to do a lot better."
"There are reasons why some teams over-achieve and others under-achieve but you can go a long way on hard work. That’s what I’ll be looking for from the players who are here already and the players we’ll be bringing in."
“The chairman and I have been talking about players since day one, deciding how we can add to the good work that’s been done here. It’s a very exciting time for me and I’m really looking forward to getting my teeth into the job.”