Sideways Sammy

Once that final penalty was missed at Wembley back in May, the countdown to the departures of Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres began. That clock has now hit zero, leaving Coventry City in the position of having to replace not just one special player who played like several individuals combined but two.

Viktor Gyokeres was the big striker who could overpower defenders with his physicality, then tie them in knots with his dribbling ability before smashing sensational strikes into the back of the net. A target man, pace man, finisher, and creator in one package.

Gustavo Hamer was the midfielder who could do everything: read the game, dictate play from deep, as well as create and score in the final third. An anchor man, conductor, playmaker, and midfield goalscorer in one package.

It was not just about the raw skillsets of Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer; it was their desire to step up at key moments and carry the team forward. There are a lot of talented footballers out there, what separates the talented from the greats is that willingness and ability to produce the goods when the team needs it most. Gyokeres dragged Coventry City out of a relegation battle last season, while Hamer stepped up in the final month of the campaign to carry the team to within a penalty shoot-out of Premier League football.

Players with that ability to step up and carry an entire team on their backs are incredibly rare to find. A football club has hit the jackpot if they’ve found just one player like that. To have two at the same time was a remarkable stroke of fortune for Coventry City. The reality, though, is that truly special, leading players like Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres are only with you for a limited amount of time. It’s up to the club to get the maximum possible output from them.

With the risk of losing Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres for free next summer hanging over the football club, the only option was to sell them now. While they are players of a quality that cannot be replaced on a one-to-one basis, bringing in money that can be invested across the team as a whole is the club’s best hope of moving on and growing as a result of having these special footballers with us over the last few years.

Of course, there was the choice of rolling the dice with Hamer and Gyokeres in keeping them for one more year and hoping that they would take Coventry City to the Premier League and then sign new contracts to stay. However, that would have put the club’s realistic hopes of a top-flight return on a one-year timer, if they had even have wanted to stay. The idea is that selling them for maximum value now extends that timer by at least a couple of years.

The club has already used the money raised by the sale of Viktor Gyokeres to invest in a number of players, all of whom are 26 years old and younger, who should play much of their prime footballing years with Coventry City. Investing in several players reduces the reliance on a couple of individuals, who can get injured or lose form or interest, potentially dragging the team down. If the likes of Haji Wright, Ellis Simms, Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, and Milan van Ewijk perform as expected while with the Sky Blues, they will either lead the club to the top-flight or be sold for a profit, which can then be further invested in the team. The sale of Gustavo Hamer provides additional funds that can contribute to this process.

It seems so simple when written down on paper; however, the success of this plan relies on the club getting it right in the transfer market. New signings will always entail some risk; the scouts may have got it wrong, the manager may fail to adapt their tactics to the new players, or the players themselves may struggle to settle, suffer injuries, or experience crises of confidence. Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres were certain players for Mark Robins to build the team around. However, the task of replacing them is much easier with £35 million in the bank, rather than nothing.

When Ray Ranson and SISU arrived at Coventry City in 2007 and invested in players like Scott Dann, Danny Fox, and Keiren Westwood, this had been the plan. However, what SISU got wrong was managing the sales of these players. Fox and Westwood were held onto for too long and ultimately left for less than their market values, while Dann was sold at the right time but was replaced with players below the standard to carry the team forward. That meant that the investment in the team fizzled out over the following years, leaving the Sky Blues with a squad of low quality and low value that was relegated to League One with barely a whimper.

The examples of Danny Fox and Keiren Westwood, in particular, are why it was the right decision to sell Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres this summer, as difficult as they will be to replace. While it remains too early in Doug King’s reign to fully judge his decision-making as a football club owner, he deserves a lot of credit for negotiating the largest and third-largest sales in Coventry City’s history for two players who could have pre-agreed a departure for nothing in four months’ time – as well as for breaking the club’s record incoming transfer too.

For all but the elite of world football, the best players will leave for bigger clubs. If you try to fight against it, you will often end up with nothing – not the player, not the success they might bring on the pitch, not the money they can bring in – or you can be pragmatic and get the best deal for them that is possible and hope to grow as a football club, in the absence of those players bringing the on-pitch achievements during their time with you.

Unfortunately, for Coventry City, Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres outgrew the football club while they were with us. They might have been under contract for another year, but it was not a realistic or sensible option to have kept hold of them. The club really had no choice but to sell them, having raised what was probably the maximum possible value from the duo, it gives the Sky Blues the best possible chance of eventually catching up to the level of these two special, generation-defining players.