Home sweet home

The new season is upon us, with the 2014/15 campaign starting to take shape.

Here at Sky Sports we will look to take you to the very heart of the Football League over the coming months, with our Spotlight features intended to give you a greater insight into the clubs and players that keep us on the edge of our seats.

We hope to bring you the views and thoughts of a representative from each of the 72 teams over the course of the season, with those involved asked to give their take on the division they compete in, the club that pays their wages and those we should all be keeping an eye on.

Coventry’s Steven Pressley is next into the hot-seat, with the Sky Blues boss taking time out to discuss returning the club to their rightful home and piecing together plans for the future with Chris Burton.

What has the focus been on this week? What have you been looking to improve on from the last three games?

I think the belief in the group and the players expressing themselves in the right manner is important. Sometimes you go through an indifferent period, as we have done in the last three weeks, and you can get obsessed as a manager and a coach with trying to implement too many tactical elements. We’re clear in the way that we play, we have a clear idea of our defensive strategy. I’m trying to stay away from some tactical elements this week because I want my players to get back to expressing themselves and playing with a degree of freedom.

And that’s definitely the case with the forwards isn’t it, they just need to keep getting themselves in the right positions and the goals will come?

Yes. They just need to express themselves. As I’ve said, if you continue to try and coach them, sometimes you can take that expression away from them. It’s finding the balance. It’s finding the balance between implementing the tactical elements that are hugely important to us out of possession, but also allowing them the freedom of expression in possession. That’s been the balancing act this week and it’s been something that I hope has a good effect.

It’s an old cliché in football, but one good result can turn everything around, can’t it - and you’ve got a great opportunity to do that against Crawley this weekend?

Of course. It was only just over two weeks ago that we were seven unbeaten and were on the crest of a wave. Two weeks later, three defeats, and there is a cloud over the club again. But that can change again so, so quickly. That’s the great thing with football, it’s about taking the opportunities, and we’ve got one tomorrow.

And being back at the Ricoh Arena, it’s important isn’t it that you keep feeding off that feel-good factor around the club?

Yes. We obviously won our first two games back at the Ricoh, which was terrific and we wanted to follow it up with a third win against Preston. But it wasn’t just the defeat against Preston, it was the fact that we failed to create the chances that I hoped we would. That’s the disappointing aspect, so hopefully, fingers crossed, we can bring a greater degree of entertainment tomorrow.

Does being back home, back in Coventry, make it feel as though the club has come through the testing times and is heading in the right direction again?

We’ve worked really hard as a whole department. We’ve worked every minute of every day to try and change the culture here, to try and change this football club. We’re working hard on developing our own young players. But the reality here is that without returning to the city, returning to the Ricoh, it was never going to be possible for us to move the club on again. I think returning to the Ricoh has given us the opportunity to do that. Hopefully, with all the hard work that has been going on and will go on in the future, returning to the city will certainly help to catapult us forward.

You’re obviously buying into that ambition aren’t you, a new four-year contract is a sizeable show of faith from both yourself and the club?

I was brought here to develop the younger players. I was brought here to develop a real football strategy and philosophy. I think we’ve implemented a lot of those ways, but it’s a longer term project. It’s one that isn’t going to be fixed by throwing money at the club, it’s going to be fixed by the development of our players. It does take commitment, but it takes commitment from both sides - commitment from the manager and commitment from the club. I think we’ve both shown that.

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And you would be immensely proud wouldn’t you to be the one that starts to take Coventry back through the divisions? It’s about unlocking the potential, isn’t it?

It is about unlocking it. I think that Southampton are a great example to ourselves. They are a club at this moment in time that are the envy of most in regards to their development of their young players. But they, not so long ago, were sitting in a similar position to ourselves. Through the right strategy and the right energy, they moved the club forward and have reaped the rewards of that.

It is still very early in the season to be setting targets but, given the size of the club and what you hope to achieve, would anything less than a top-six finish be a disappointment?

I think we’ve got to aim that high, there’s no doubt about it. We’ve got to aim as high as possible, but the one thing that we want to see this season is progression. As long as I see progression, I’ll be satisfied as a manager.

Sky Bet are the Title Sponsor of The Football League. This season, a £250,000 Sky Bet Transfer Fund will go to a Football League club to spend on players in the January 2015 transfer window. Fans who bet with Sky Bet generate Transfer Fund Tokens and go into a random draw to win a £5,000 prize – and the £250,000 Sky Bet Transfer Fund for their Football League club. To sign up, go towww.skybet.com/transferfund and select the Football League team you support.