Yahoo Sport 
Stamenic, Sheaf & Coventry City’s midfield numbers – Doug King opens up on ‘private business’
Doug King has opened up on Coventry City’s “private” transfer business and addressed what he says has become an “obsession” with the team’s midfield.
The club owner instructed sacked manager Mark Robins not to discuss transfers with the media last summer when the Sky Blues were reported by a number of overseas outlets to be chasing Red Star midfielder Marko Stamenic, with City understood to have agreed a fee with his club for around £4.6m for the 22-year-old.
The New Zealand international, however, didn’t want to come and, instead, opted to sign for Nottingham Forest who immediately sent him out on a season-long loan to the Premier League side's sister club, Olympiacos. So far this term the holding midfielder has made just four starts and three appearances from he bench in the Greek Super League where they are currently second in the division.
READ MORE: Frank Lampard's former assistant Jody Morris on Coventry City link and prospect of joining him
Speaking to King after Monday night’s fans’ forum, CoventryLive asked him how close the club were to getting a key central midfield player in the summer - a key position that many feel hasn't been filled since Gus Hamer left 18 months ago.
“Listen, we looked at a lot of players and went after a couple of players, of which Marko Stamenic was one of them,” he said.
“Everyone is obsessed with the midfield and obviously there has been a few injuries there but we have high quality in there. I mean, how many midfielders do we want? We have the four that we know about (Eccles, Sheaf, Torp, Rudoni), we have Kai Andrews, Jamie Allen, had Kasey Palmer... We have Joel (Latibeaudiere) who can play in there. Maybe we should have nine or ten, do you know what I mean?”
King hinted that the arrival of a relatively high profile midfielder may well have paved the way for the club to cash in on Ben Sheaf who revealed recently that he had interest from other clubs in the summer, but that Coventry didn’t want him to go.
“Everybody has their view on everything but we felt if we could get a high quality number six in at some point it would give us flexibility in respect of whether there could maybe some outgoings – I think Ben Sheaf mentioned that he had an approach in the summer – so we don’t know how it would have all played out,” he said.
“This is a little difficult for me because we’re quite a private football club but obviously what’s gone down (with the dismissal of Mark Robins) needs to be explained. But in general, I am a private business and I don’t like to talk about plans because I have competitors, and for me this is a bit awkward, and the forum was a bit awkward because I will have employees who will be upset. But sometimes we have to be what we have got to be and we’ve been transparent about what happened.”
