Adi Viveash appears to be a very prominent figure at Coventry City from an external perspective. When there is a conflict on the sidelines, it is almost certain that the 54-year-old assistant manager will be actively involved.
For nearly seven years, the ex-Chelsea youth and development coach has been working closely with Mark Robins, the manager of Sky Blues. He has been a reliable and important assistant, contributing significantly to the club’s progression from League Two to a competitive team in the Championship, on the verge of entering the Premier League.
Although they have distinct characteristics, both individuals share a common aspiration: to secure City’s promotion and operate at the highest level of English football. In this second part of CoventryLive’s exclusive three-part interview, the exceptional head coach of Coventry reveals insights into his rapport with the manager, the content of half-time team discussions, the strategic formations employed, and the ongoing adaptation and evolution of these tactics, all of which will impact the club’s recruitment efforts during the summer.
When questioned about his own aspirations, he responded, “I am frequently asked if I have a desire to become a manager.” No, I have never aspired to be a manager. I lacked aspirations to pursue a career in the senior level of the industry. I experienced great joy while playing in youth football and never anticipated that I would reach the highest level, like I did at Chelsea. I consider myself really fortunate.
“I experienced rapid development and progressed swiftly through the various age groups.” I was really happy and think I did a reasonable job, but when something changes and you have that bolt; someone makes a decision, and that’s their prerogative, these things happen and I ended myself here. I have been a head coach for 15 years. That’s what I do.”
As for his connection with Mark Robins – his old Walsall team-mate who called upon his services back in the summer of 2017 when his former assistant, Steve Taylor, suffered a bleed on the brain and needed time out – it’s definitely not a match made in heaven, but it’s certainly one that works. Robins noted lately that Viveash can be “difficult,” but intended in terms of him not being a ‘yes’ man, which is exactly what he doesn’t want. He wants someone who challenges viewpoints and has his own ideas and input.
It appears to be a case of two big personalities rebounding off each other, so is that the secret of their double-act success?
“Whether we’re two strong characters and that’s why it works, I don’t know,” he remarked. “I certainly think, yes, the gaffer has said that I challenge but creating a challenging environment is one of my big strengths; how you get the culture, how you set up the training and how you demand in each session. Yes, I have no bones about admitting that’s me at my finest and that’s why I worked at the level I did.
“Is that challenging? Yes. Do I challenge him every minute of every day? No. As I have said previously, I have never wanted to be a manager and the things he deals with, no. But if he asks me a question about how a training session went and if he says he believed a certain player trained well – if I didn’t then I would tell him, so if that’s challenging…
“Sometimes we agree and sometimes we disagree, but he’s the manager, as he’s said himself, and it starts there and ends there. I respect the fact that he’s the manager and the job he’s done. I applaud what he’s done to rebuild this club and good luck to him. But I certainly don’t think I am tough to deal with.”
He added: “When I was a young player and I first signed for my home town club, Swindon, I was a very quiet person. I am a very quiet person now. I know I am not silent on the training pitch but I am fairly reserved in my private life.
Arrogance
“But that was taken as arrogance when I was a player. People stated ‘he doesn’t say much, he’s arrogant, he’s a footballer.’ And that used to rile me a lot because that’s not the case. I always used to stare, examine and watch. When I coach I always get in the middle because I can see it and feel the speed that the ball is moving. That’s how I work. A lot of coaches stand at the side.
“But I certainly don’t think I am difficult. Within the football department in terms of the players coming to me, every single colleague I have worked with has come to me on a personal basis during my time here. You don’t do that if you are working with a tough individual because you steer away from those types of people.
“They also know that I am different when I am coaching to when I am away from it.”
As for the general cause, they have plenty in common.
“We are very different people with different outlooks on life,” he remarked. “We’re not moulded the same but we certainly want the same thing in terms of Coventry being back in the Premier League. We want it to be the best version of the club it can be, and we want to have fantastic players and see the squad playing good football.
“Sometimes we will have different ideas on shape and personnel, but at the end of the day he’s the manager. But if he asks me for an opinion on the shape for a match I will tell him. We will watch the opposition separately, for example Huddersfield this weekend, and we’ll have slightly different views around how we go about winning the game and the problems we are going to face, and we will come together and that will formulate in training and work into the game, and that’s generally how it works.”
Half-time team speeches
Asked about the dynamic when it comes to half-time team discussions — a tiny 15 minute window of opportunity to reaffirm what’s going well or swiftly attempt to put right what’s going wrong in a game, the culture has definitely changed over the years. The one time iconic tea cups flying across the dressing room in a fit of wrath from a management are long gone.
“It’s evolved over the years, so those team talks in League Two were probably more men, should we say, where we could try to get a response,” he confessed.
“This group is very young and it works in a slightly different way. Have there been a handful of situations this year when it has been quite heated in the dressing room? I would say sure, but I think that was also down to the players being dissatisfied with the way a given performance was going. But if the gaffer talks and goes in making points about fixing this or that then I will normally wait. I make notes during the game and I will focus on three things in terms of points that can develop our play, something we need to tackle or a set-piece issue we haven’t dealt with.
“But 15 minutes isn’t very long when it starts and you have to be conscious of that. Sometimes I will say nothing. There have been a few of situations this year when the first half has been really fantastic and we may not have been winning. There was one game where we were a goal down but we just reinforced it and we drew the game in the end.
“But that’s your experience as a coach, and you have to know the individuals because some need an arm around the shoulder and others don’t. But things have changed. Years ago you could approach players within a group and tell them it’s not good enough. Now you have to do it on their own, walk around the corner with them. Not all of them, but you have to work people out, and they have to work you out, and that’s one of the skills.
“We had a lot of changes this year and they have to get used to the way I work. The intensity of the effort is often commented about by players who come here from somewhere else. We work incredibly hard in training because we want to demand the same levels as in a game. But I give as much praise out as anybody. I tell them when they do it and I tell them when they don’t.
“You have to tell them when it’s good because you tell them when it’s not. You have to expect those standards to make sure they reach those levels because we have players here that could easily play in the Premier League, and if they don’t get there then I see it as a failure on our part.”
An unfortunate regulation change this season means that only one person is allowed in the technical area at the pitch side — a spot where Viveash could be seen routinely prowling and yelling out instructions at Robins’ side. But not anymore. So how has he coped with that?
“It’s not easy because there’s a two way communication with the players,” he remarked. “The gaffer works in a certain way, stands in the technical area and observes but sometimes messages need to get on quick or players are seeking information.
Bugged
“More recently we have tried to tweak it a little bit. We went to West Brom and they had four stood up all the time and I think it annoyed us a bit because every time we seem to do it we get pulled up on it. So it was quite difficult to start with since it’s not the way we have operated. But what do you do, you work in a different method. So I usually watch more of the film from the TV on the bench, and then when you go in at half time I probably display more clips than talking.
“A lot of what happens at half-time is me showing a couple of players on the side if something isn’t quite working right.”
Formations are a fascinating topic for any fan and City’s have altered and evolved over the last seven years. Asked if it’s a question of the manager and himself picking the systems to suit players they have got or rather a case of recruiting particular types of players to fit a style or formation they want to deploy, he said: “I think it’s a bit of both really.”
This season, for example, started with a back three and wing-backs and moved to a back four and wingers. Asked if it evolved spontaneously or whether they sought out to change it, he said: “When we were in League Two I think we played 4-4-1-1 and I think the gaffer’s team at previous clubs were pretty similar to that. It was a 4-3-3 when Jodi (Jones) was playing and we had two wingers.
“The players were recruited for a 4-3-3 in League One, with (Wes) Jobello and (Gervane) Kastaneer rolling in from the left and a wide player on the right. But you knew that you had enough centre-backs to convert to a three if you needed to, and we practiced on both in pre-season.”
He added: “You look at what you have got and the manager and recruitment department talk about types of players, and if you can get utility players – a bit like Joel Latibeaudiere at the minute – that can mean you can change formation if you need to. Have you got enough midfield players with the craft to play a diamond midfield, a flat four – which we haven’t done but could – a box or you can play three and one of them as a second striker, like Callum (O’Hare) or Kasey (Palmer) moving up with a striker.
“When Fadz (Kyle McFadzean) went into a three that year at Fleetwood, that summer players were recruited to play in a three. This year they were recruited to play in a three but also knowing that Bobby, Joel, Kitch and Binksy are quick enough to play in a back four, so we always felt with Fadz, bless him, and his status at the club, coming from a regular to the pressure of the quality of the players in that position.
“He was a great player for this football team; an outstanding signing. He’s a fantastic person and I enjoyed working with him as much as any athlete because at 33 he came in and wanted to learn and grow, and he got better through hard effort. And I’ll always appreciate him for that because he could have come here with the attitude of, ‘oh, I have done all that.”
Revealing the decision to transition to a four this season, he said: “In terms of a system, I think that evolution was always going to happen. I think it was always going to get to a four and it was just a question of when. It happened at Preston and the three strikers playing together was interesting and then at Stoke we could see how that probably didn’t work all the time. And so you are simply tinkering and finding ways. And I think that’s how it will be moving into the summer and working into next season.”
Summer recruitment
Providing an indication as to the types of regions City will be trying to recruit in the summer, he revealed: “I think we’ll be looking for more choices in wide areas, it’s fair to say. Obviously Ephron Mason-Clark has signed so we know we are getting someone there. Haji sure looks like he enjoys playing that position.
“Tatsu probably needs some top end competition, and that’s no disrespect to Fabio (Tavares) or Milan (van Ewijk), so I imagine that area is going to be quite a key area for the club. And then you don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ve got Callum’s (O’Hare) predicament and the team might move based on that.
“You might end up with Victor Torp, who is really an eight, not a six and not a ten. He’s an eight, for me. I know he’s played in all those positions but he’s an eight. He likes to break and plays deadly passes and he shoots; good player.
“But that’s what he is and then you have to have a different kind of six to play with him. Kasey can play eight – he played it in his young years – but then that takes him from 10 to eight, so how does it work? I think it’s always evolving.
“But systems? If you have got good players they can play any system. We could play 4-4-2 with this bunch and I still think they’d play really good football.”
Looking back to earlier in the season there was a block of four games, starting with a narrow 1-0 defeat at Ashton Gate where City played the Robins off the park but lost, that proved to be a turning point in the campaign in terms of both results and formation.
“It’s really interesting because I thought we were unbelievable at Bristol City in the first half and that was as good as I have seen us play over the years in 45 minutes,” he remarked. “We absolutely dominated that game and on another day we’d have been 4-0 up and maybe the system wouldn’t have changed and Fadz could have still been here. You never know.
“But obviously it just felt like the right time to change things and that’s the beauty of having a player like Latibeaudiere, in the fact that he can play in all those positions and you can have that flexibility.”
Formations, of course, come and fall out of fashion and are often set by trail-blazing managers like Pep Guardiola and filter down.
“There are a lot of good coaches in the Championship,” he remarked. “Russell Martin at Southampton is an exceptional coach, Maresca at Leicester. Obviously he’s worked with Pep so he’s brought that. I personally don’t think that suits the players we have got, to roll in at full-back.
“I’m a little bit like we need to do it in a slightly different way. So the fact of having your two top attackers in Ellis (Simms) and Haji (Wright) on the pitch, you have to find a different way. But that’s not about systems, it’s about how do you get the best out of Haji. Well, you want to give him a bit of space on the left but you want him arriving in the middle because he’s a good finisher and a really excellent header of the ball. If he’s wide he’s never going to mature into what you want him to look like.”
He added: “My philosophy is all about how do we want to play football? Do we want to play out from the back? How does that look? What would the perfect goal look like when you play all the way from the goalkeeper, and then you move that around like chess pieces.”
Having worked with Jose Mourinho in his peak, City’s great coach maintains he’s never once snatched a training session.
“I have never done a training session that anyone else has done, never copied one in my life,” he claimed. “I have seen incredible coaches, Mourinho when I was at Chelsea and I was lucky to observe him at his best, I think.
“His attention to detail, commanding respect and real top sessions. His sessions went to Real Madrid and he blamed Paul Clement who went to work with Carlo Ancelotti, who worked at Chelsea.
“It was quite funny because he asked me once if I had copied any of his sessions and I said, ‘no,’ and he said, ‘oh, not good enough for you…’ So that’s how he is.
“I said I never copy sessions. He asked me which ones I prefer, so I had to answer him but he gave me respect because I didn’t duplicate him.”
He added: “I respect the inverted full-backs rolling in and things. It has given us problems at different moments but we have to find a manner that suits us, and it’s about getting the word out to the players that they can play a specific way and carry out that game plan. And that’s how you have amazing days like Leicester here and Wolves in the Cup, and many more where the players have been spot on tactically.”
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