Coventry City Mark Robins has insisted this week that striker Viktor Gyokeres will be a Sky Blues player beyond January 31, amid apparent growing Premier League interest, and Nigel Pearson has adopted a similar attitude in emphasising the threat his Bristol City team will face on Sunday.
According to reports in Sweden and in this country, Everton, Fulham, Wolves and Brentford are the top-flight teams keen on signing the powerful forward in this transfer window with Gyokeres having netted 12 goals, including seven in his last eight games.
“He’s not going anywhere. No chance” was the crux of the message from Robins in the wake of this week’s stalemate with Cardiff City, but each game - as is the case for Alex Scott, Antoine Semenyo or any other saleable asset at a Championship club - does resemble something of an audition.
Gyokeres combines pace, power, physicality in the air and intelligence around the penalty area, and if he can improve his efficiency in front of goal, he has all the components to operate consistently at top-flight level.
City are well-versed in the qualities of the Swede as scored the winner in a 2-1 win for the Sky Blues at Ashton Gate last season, while should have troubled the scoresheet in the fixture in BS3 in early October, only for his finishing to desert him.
The likelihood is the back three that started that game - Zak Vyner, Rob Atkinson and Kal Naismith, with the Scot then suffering a calf injury and Andy King stepping in - will be in position again at the CBS Arena on New Year's Day.
As Pearson has outlined, the Sky Blues are a different kind of side to the Millwall outfit the Robins frustrated at The Den on Thursday, with City needing to be wise to their interplay and Gyokores’ runs in behind.
“Mark Robins has done a really good job over a sustained period of time,” said Pearson. “Coventry are a footballing side. They stick to their principles and they play a style of football in which you have to be switched on and the levels of concentration are different.
“Against Millwall it’s a war of attrition – in a game where you play a team like Coventry it’s more about concentrating as the ball is building up and it’s the change of pace that can hurt you.
“They have a striker (Gyokeres) who is in seriously good form and scores a lot of late goals. It’s a different type of danger but it’s always about team performance and players understanding their roles and going out and doing it.”
Coventry will be without playmaker Callum O’Hare - who caused the Robins significant problems in this fixture last season - after the 24-year-old sustained a ruptured ACL against Sheffield United on Boxing Day and is out for the rest of the season.
That means Kasey Palmer will line up behind Gyokeres, with the former City midfielder saying earlier this week that he, "wants three points more than any game in the league”.
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