Coventry are back in the Premier League: Can they keep defying the odds?

It has been a tumultuous 25 years since Coventry City last played Premier League football, but after storming to the Championship title with room to spare last season, the Sky Blues are finally back in English football’s promised land.

The journey has rarely been easy, with the club staring down the barrel of liquidation over the last quarter-century and even being forced to play ‘home’ games 35 miles away in Northampton for a season. With those memories fresh in supporter’s minds, Friday’s trip to North London to play defending champions Arsenal in the Premier League opener will have felt like a surreal end to quite an incredible odyssey.

What has changed over the summer?

Despite owner Doug King questioning Sunderland’s aggressive transfer policy following their promotion from the Championship, the Sky Blues have looked to tread a similar path. Their net transfer spend this summer has been near the top of the Premier League, dwarfing that of established giants like Liverpool and Manchester United. We have seen the boom-or-bust potential of promoted clubs spending large sums of money in recent years, but supporters should be quietly optimistic, as their transfer record under head of recruitment-turned-sporting director Dean Austin in his four years at the club has been excellent.

Securing the permanent services of goalkeeper Carl Rushworth after he won the Championship Golden Glove last year while on loan at the club looks a brilliant piece of business, while the catalogue of exciting youngsters that have been brought in look to have imbued Frank Lampard’s squad with a much-needed sense of dynamism and depth.

Look out in particular for club-record signing Caleb Yirenkyi, who won young player of the year in the Danish Superliga last season and impressed in the World Cup for Ghana. The 20-year-old central midfielder’s physicality and poise with the ball at his feet was on full display throughout the tournament, and he can even count legendary Premier League midfielder and countryman Michael Essien amongst his huge admirers.

The size of the club as it is deserves to be a Premier League club

Frank Lampard, Coventry City Head Coach

Perhaps Coventry’s only weakness from last season was a slight lack of maturity and top-level experience. This was evident in mildly concerning spells either side of Christmas that threatened to relinquish the Sky Blues’ grasp on the top of the Championship table. Lampard will be well aware from his previous managerial battle scars that his team cannot afford these occasional downturns in form across a 38-game Premier League season that seldom offers much early encouragement to newly promoted sides.

Late arrival Taiwo Awoniyi, who scored 21 goals in 90 topflight games for Nottingham Forest, will go some way to bringing that level of know-how, as well as popular returnee Gustavo Hamer, who had 11 goal contributions for Sheffield United the last time they were in the Premier League.

Speaking just a couple of days ahead of the clash with Arsenal, Lampard said: “I love the squad that got us to the Premier League, they fully deserve it and they were great for us last year. But of course we know we want to improve, so we brought in some players that we think will help the squad.”

“We are ambitious and we want to stay here. The size of the club as it is deserves to be a Premier League club.”

So how will they fare?

Coventry supporters will be hoping that the fortunes of two out of the three promoted clubs last season was not merely a flash in the pan, but a sign of things to come.

This is a club that has been faced with adversity time and time again and always seems to come out on top

In their run to promotion, the Sky Blues had the joint sixth highest-scoring season in Championship history and dominated from set pieces, scoring 29 goals from dead balls across the season. These are two very encouraging signs that this is a team capable of going toe-to-toe with anyone in the Premier League. Key players like Jack Rudoni and Milan van Ewijk look tailor-made for the pace of the topflight, while the return of Rushworth in goal could prove pivotal.

The Premier League has not always been kind to feel-good promotion stories in recent years, but this is a club that has been faced with adversity time and time again and always seems to come out on top.

25 years ago Coventry City supporters held up posters that said “We’ll be back” after relegation was confirmed, but this time around it feels as if they might be here to stay.