Coventry City boss Mark Robins has revealed striker Viktor Gyokeres is "very settled" at the CBS Arena amid interest from elsewhere, speaking to Coventry Live.

The 24-year-old didn’t exactly light up the Championship during his loan spell with the Sky Blues during the 2020/21 campaign, scoring just three times in 19 league appearances.

However, Robins retained his faith in the Sweden international by recruiting him permanently from Premier League side Brighton and Hove Albion, scoring 19 times in all competitions last term and his progress certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed.

 

 

Premier League outfit Fulham were interested in recruiting him during the early stages of this summer, with Marco Silva’s side in need of a new centre-forward with Aleksandar Mitrovic and Rodrigo Muniz their only real options at this stage, though the latter has been linked with a move to Middlesbrough.

Speaking of Chris Wilder’s side, they are another side believed to have been interested in luring Gyokeres away from the Midlands along with Burnley.

Although the former remain in the second tier, the sales of Djed Spence and Marcus Tavernier could be a real game-changer for the Teesside outfit who would have only had a limited amount of funds to spend this summer without that revenue being generated.

Coventry, however, have remained firm on one of their key assets up to this point and manager Robins believes the forward is settled with the Sky Blues.

He said: "Viktor is really settled but you are always at the mercy of predators.

"Everyone up and down the country is the same, even the top clubs are selling players and having to rebuild.

"It’s about the timing of things, the value and circumstances, and if all those things align then players move on, but I am not just talking about Viktor, I am talking about everyone."

The Verdict:

Robins is being realistic because if a side makes an offer that’s hard to refuse, Coventry will probably decide to move their star striker on despite how much of an asset he is.

Cashing in on him could enable them to tie Callum O’Hare and Gustavo Hamer down to longer deals and may even enable them to keep the duo, so the potential sale of Gyokeres may not be a complete disaster in the long term.

However, they would need to replace him despite the other forwards they have at their disposal, because the likes of Martin Waghorn and Fabio Tavares may not be able to score at a similar rate to the Swede and Matty Godden has suffered with fitness issues in recent years.

It remains to be seen whether the club’s owners would be willing to give the Sky Blues’ boss a considerable amount of the funds generated for his services.

And for that reason, a lot of Coventry fans will probably want to see him remain in the Midlands for the foreseeable future, especially after his superb solo effort against Sunderland at the weekend.