What Doug King won't do if Coventry City are promoted - it involves Sunderland AFC | OneFootball

Doug King has discussed what Coventry City's transfer business may look like if they gain promotion to the Premier League

Coventry City are edging ever close to a long-awaited Premier League return six years on from gaining promotion back to the Championship, with Frank Lampard's side now sitting pretty at the summit of the table once more with just 9 games to spare.

The Sky Blues enjoyed early-season dominance to open up an almighty advantage in first-place and, while that was briefly surrendered to Middlesbrough, City have gone from strength to strength after claiming an all-important Haji Wright-inspired 3-1 victory over Kim Hellberg's promotion-chasing outfit last month.

Coventry had failed to win any of their previous three matches before Middlesbrough's trip to the CBS Arena. Since then, however, they have claimed five more successive victories to race into an eight-point lead over second-placed Boro ahead of tomorrow afternoon's fixture at home to Southampton.

It would appear as though Lampard is poised to finally get Coventry over the line following a number of failed play-off attempts, with the Sky Blues having suffered defeat to eventual winners Sunderland in last season's semi-finals.

And, ironically enough, there's something the Black Cats have done that owner Doug King has vowed against emulating if Coventry are to go all the way and gain promotion come May.

The Sunderland AFC thing that Doug King won't do if Coventry City are promoted

King spoke to BBC Coventry & Warwickshire to discuss the Sky Blues' ongoing promotion bid and how they may elect to operate if and when their 25-year top-flight absence ends.

Lampard, of course, would be expected to receive strong backing in the Premier League in light of the job he has done in the West Midlands, and the question was poked to King amid increased competitiveness from the newly-promoted sides this term with Leeds United currently outside of the relegation zone and Sunderland's safety already secured.

Sunderland now have a new-look team from the side which gained promotion under Regis Le Bris, having spent £155 million on no fewer than 14 summer signings. Though it has been argued that such a bullish recruitment policy which has essentially pushed many of the Black Cats' promotion-winners onto the periphery and even out of the Stadium of Light altogether is harsh, few can deny it's worked for Le Bris and co as the Wearside club find themselves positioned in 11th with 40 points to their name.

King, however, has dubbed Sunderland's approach as "radical", vowing that Coventry will avoid following suit in order to retain the club's identity. Instead, he has declared that the Sky Blues will do it "the Cov way" and, while Lampard will naturally receive backing upon promotion, such a radical overhaul of the playing squad perhaps shouldn't be expected.

King explained: "I think everybody probably approaches that in their own, independent way. Burnley have been up and down a couple of times, [it] hasn't quite worked how they did it.

"Obviously Sunderland, I guess, changed the whole first XI, which for me is a little bit radical, obviously they're staying up but their identity of who got them there has been somewhat lost.

"Is that the right thing to do? I don't know. I guess we'll do it the Cov way. We'll do it the way we think is the right way to try and achieve what we want to achieve within what we are able to do at that time, I think.

"I mean once you get to the Premier League, you definitely would like to try and stay there, certainly for one year, then it allows you to bed in a little bit, but it's not so straightforward, and we're aware of that.

"But listen, we've got really good people. Dean Austin, our recruitment director has got a really good extended team. We're looking at lots of different things.

"We've done a great job. I have to shout it out, a great job in that department from when we sold Vik [Gyokeres] and Gus [Hamer] in those early days, how well we have recruited has really established us.

"I look at squad value, how have we developed players? What are we paying for? We have to make money and we have to develop them, right? We can't just sit here and pay expensive players and let them fall off the cliff afterwards, then we're losing more money.

"So if you look at that and you can check it out, we've really established a high quality squad at this level and when I came in three years ago, we had a couple of players.

"We've reinvested it really well and I'm proud that we've done that because we needed to do that. We couldn't muck that up.

"So I take a lot of confidence from that with that team, we're already expanding and bringing more people in, more crunching, more data, more creative work of trying to do our own thing versus just following everybody else.

"That's what I do anyway. I like to go my own way and zag when others are zigging and all that sort of thing. I don't like following people particularly, so we'll do it the Cov way and hopefully if we get there we'll see where we go, but it'll be our way."

Coventry City already have Premier League-ready talent amid Doug King's Sunderland claim

There's a fine line between bolstering the squad and abandoning the culture and identity that has been carefully-constructed over a sustained period of time, and while King is right to want to retain that, it's difficult to deny that he will need to dip into his pockets to support Lampard over the summer if promotion is gained.

Sunderland's strategy may seem somewhat-brutal, but ultimately, it's successful and is hardly the worst post-promotion transfer blueprint to follow.

Coventry, though, do have a stronger squad than the Sunderland side which went up through the play-offs less than twelve months ago, and it may not require the same level of summer surgery.

The likes of Milan van Ewijk and Jack Rudoni are both arguably top-flight quality already and the same can be said for Brighton and Hove Albion loanee Carl Rushworth, who looks increasingly likely to sign permanently at the CBS Arena, while further stars such as Matt Grimes, Ephron Mason-Clarke and Wright are all deserving of an opportunity to showcase their respective worth at the highest level.

But there are also numerous holes in this Coventry squad from a Premier League perspective, and although the squad will love King's admission and a few may just make that step up, a number of uncomfortable conversations may also await Lampard.