Coventry City manager Aidy Boothroyd will warn his players that it is far more important to get points than it is to be liked.
With this in mind, he will soon choose who is to be the club captain now that the former arm band holder, Stephen Wright is leaving the club. Boothroyd's choice of skipper will come down to who can command the respect and can inspire the squad rather than who is the most likable.
Boothroyd will try to instill a winning mentality into his side when they all get together for the start of the pre season training. He said, “Sometimes there is a tendency for players to want to be liked rather than respected,”
“You speak to other managers and many of them are asking where the leaders are. We have players with the potential to be leaders here but sometimes you can’t be popular and also be a winner.”
Boothroyd thinks motivation and selecting the right players for the right roles is more important than money in building a successful squad, “You’ve got to get the balance right,” he said. “And that doesn’t mean spending hundreds of millions of pounds, that sometimes that can burn a hole in your pocket."
“We’ve already made enquiries about players but you don’t always get the first one. You can’t just recruit talent, they have to be hungry and they have to have the right character."
“Whether that’s coming down from the Premier League with them wanting to prove to their parent club that they can cut it or whether that’s coming up from League One or Two and they want to show they can do it at a higher level, but the key ingredient is that hunger. It’s not all about recruitment either. You have to improve what you have already got."
“We have a good sprinkling of players here and starting from a base of 15 contracted players is a good start and I think the aim would be to get that up near something like 24. We want to sign players that will make others sit back and say ‘whoa’, someone that will provide the fear factor for other teams.The sort of player that turns a 0-0 on a cold November night into a 1-0 win.”