Coventry City: Mark Robins couldn't work magic with late-window Reading FC deal: View | OneFootball

Tennai Watson joined the Sky Blues on loan in 2019, but probably wishes he hadn't

Key Takeaways

Coventry City and Mark Robins have usually had the Midas touch when it comes to transfers of late, but even the Sky Blues get it wrong at some points.

After a number of seasons challenging near the top of the Championship, it’s almost easy to forget it wasn’t all plain sailing for Cov for the decade before, with the club falling as low as League Two as they continued to spiral.

Robins has been influential in turning the club around, with some shrewd acquisitions in the transfer market along the way to help the rise back up to being playoff contenders in the second tier.

But not every deal has gone to plan along the way, and fingers will point at Tennai Watson as being one of the misjudged signings during that era, with the defender barely touching grass during his time in the Midlands.

Tennai Watson fails to perform after Coventry City switch

With early injuries to Josh Pask and Brandon Mason in the 2019/20 campaign, Robins was left scrambling around for defensive cover for the season ahead, and managed to agree a deal for Watson to move to the Sky Blues until January from Reading.

Having been given a late substitute appearances against Oxford United within days of signing, Watson was then thrown into the action in the EFL Trophy against Walsall just days later.

The surroundings of sleepy, not-bothered crowds that the early stages of that particular competition brings will prove to be familiar territory for Watson over his time with the Sky Blues, with four of his seven appearances coming in those cup games.

A single league start in a match with Accrington Stanley was all that the defender had to show for his efforts during his time in the Midlands, with a 3-2 victory over Southampton’s under-21 side about as good as it got for the Englishman in that period.

With the loan deal only arranged until January, Watson probably couldn’t get back down to Berkshire quick enough, although he would only go on to feature in two more matches for the Royals during his time with the club.

Tennai Watson finds a home at MK Dons

With a lack of game time meaning he had only played 31 league games by the age of 24, Watson needed to find somewhere that would take him in and let him flourish, and he found that in MK Dons.

Once given regular time in the first-team, the defender became the sort of player that Robins must have imagined he would have been when he brought him to the club two years before.

36 games for the Dons saw him become part of the side that got to the third tier playoffs in the 21/22 campaign, as he finally found a place to call home and play his best football.

Since then, he has gone on to become a regular for the Dons, and now plies his trade at Charlton Athletic, leaving his sporadic time at Coventry City seeming like a distant memory.

It wasn’t to be for Watson and the Sky Blues, and only the most ardent of Coventry fans will even remember his brief stint at the club, such was his peripheral nature at the time.