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Mark Robins’ key decision in Viktor Gyokeres’ ‘incredible’ career amid doubts from coach who helped shape him
Viktor Gyokeres has been back on Coventry City’s news radar this week following reports that Sporting Lisbon boss Ruben Amorim is being lined up to replace Erik ten Hag at Manchester United.
Given that the former Sky Blues star striker’s agent insists that the reason he chose Sporting Lisbon rather than a raft of Premier League suitors when he left the CBS Arena in the summer of 2023 was to work under the highly-rated coach, it follows that the 26-year-old player has been linked with a move to Old Trafford, in the event that Amorim is appointed.
In just over 12 months at the Portuguese club, Gyokeres has taken his game to another level with goal scoring stats through the roof and his agent widely crediting Amorim as being instrumental in the forward’s emergence as an elite scorer. That has irked some Sky Blues fans, annoyed that Coventry City’s part in his development appears to have been overlooked by Gyokeres’ representative and the media.
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With that in mind, it seems apposite to look back at his journey via the Championship club and revisit an insightful interview with the coach who clearly set him on the path to realising his potential as a top European goal scorer, Adi Viveash.
Seeing the development of players is where every coach gets their job satisfaction, whether it’s Kyle McFadzean arriving at the club at 33 and wanting to improve or Manchester City prospect Callum Doyle joining as a raw Premier League prospect and leaving nine months later as an accomplished performer.
One of the most outstanding success stories, however, is that of Gyokeres. Joining the Sky Blues on a half season loan from Brighton in January 2021 after barely getting a kick after being farmed out to Swansea in the first half of the campaign, he had all the raw attributes but few, including Viveash, saw what was to come. Going on to score 18 goals in his first full season at Coventry and 23 in his second, he was then sold to Sporting where he’s continued to shine, scoring 43 goals in 50 appearances last season and already has 14 in as many games this term for the Portuguese champions.
Speaking exclusively to CoventryLive in March, I asked Viveash if he was proud of his part in the Sweden striker’s development.
“Yes, and to be fair it was the gaffer (Mark Robins) who was insistent on signing him," revealed the coach, who left the club in July. "I was a little bit like, you saw the glimpses; the goal he scored at Stoke to get us away from that relegation zone in his first season but, for me, it was a little bit of, ‘will he get to that level?’ But the gaffer was very insistent to sign him for the money they did, which was a great thing to do.”
City paid Brighton just over £1million to upgrde his loan to a permanent contract, and sold him to Sporting Lisbon two years later, for what has amounted to £20m and the prospect of a several more millions to come from a sell-on clause.
Viveash added: “And you could see from the first day of pre-season when he came back that he was a different animal. It was almost like the belief he had got from someone buying him and putting their faith in him, saying, ‘you are going to be our number nine,’ and he just started bullying people from day one. His physical stature had changed.”
Gyokeres earned a reputation for being a bit grumpy at training, and Viveash admits the player didn’t always enjoy the sessions he put on for the talented goal scorer.
“He hated possession sessions where he couldn’t run and we’d have loads of arguments about it,” he revealed. “But then we gave him bits where we would work on giving the ball to the keeper and then he would catch him, and it was designed to put him in one v one; like leaving him up from a corner. And when that comes off like it did against Blackpool and he scored, he came back past us in the dugout and just nodded his head as if to say, ‘thanks for that.’
“But what he turned into was incredible, from what he came from. Everyone here, from Adam Hearn (head of sports science) and the medical department, Trav (Paul Travis) with the analysis, they all played an enormous part in Vik’s journey and should be all extremely proud of that. It’s not just the coaches.
“I often talk about Marshy (kit man Chris Marsh), who is always laughing or singing about the place. So we all have different roles. Marshy around the players, just calms them. They will come in from the training and intensity of it and then they have their free time and they go in with Marshy and the music gets turned up and he’ll be singing. And we’re trying to have a meeting upstairs and you have to go down and tell him, but that part is always important to players. And Vik needed that, needed people to talk to him around the training ground.
“Players like Gus (Hamer) would go up and hold court with everyone in the office and it calmed them every day. With Vik, it brought him out of himself because when he first arrived it was like, ‘morning!’ And then three months later he was holding a conversation and by the time he left he was a different man. So all these people he and Gus spoke to everyday played a part in their evolution because they calmed them by having normal conversations, sharing things about their life.”
