Speaking to Coventry Live, Coventry City legend Steve Ogrizovic has said that the Sky Blues should pursue permanent deals for loan pair Liam Walsh and Callum O’Hare, acknowledging that it could be difficult to pull off financially.
It has been a successful 2019/20 League One campaign for Coventry City so far. The Sky Blues sit at the top of the table having played 34 league games so far, five points clear of 2nd placed Rotherham United and seven points clear of the play-off places.
Two of the club’s star performers of the campaign so far have been loan men Liam Walsh and Callum O’Hare. The midfielders have featured consistently throughout the course of the season, notching up 34 and 39 appearances respectively, both notching up four goals and laying on seven assists across all competitions.
And, one man who has been thoroughly impressed with the pair is Coventry City legend Steve Ogrizovic. The former goalkeeper spoke to Coventry Live to say how the pair have impressed him over the course of the season, saying that the club would snatch up the chance to sign Walsh and O’Hare permanently.
“Would they be a benefit to the team next season? One hundred per cent, yes. If you could get Walsh and O’Hare you’d do it every day of the week. The reality is, though, how much would they cost and how much would their wages be?”
Ogrizovic went on to discuss the contract situations of both Walsh and O’Hare. The pair’s deals with Bristol City and Aston Villa respectively are set to expire at the end of this season, but the Robins do have the option to extend Walsh’s deal by another year. Villa are reported to have offered O’Hare a new deal, only for the midfielder to turn the offer down.
“If O’Hare hasn’t agreed a contract with Villa they could blow Coventry out of the water, regardless of whether they stayed in the Premier League or dropped down to the Championship. If Callum hasn’t signed then maybe it’s for football reasons rather than financially. And if it’s for football reasons then Coventry have got more chance of getting him because you would imagine he will want to be playing more regularly and he knows he would do that at Coventry.
“But if it’s a financial thing then you can forget it because you’d imagine Villa, every day of the week, could offer a lot more than Coventry could.
“With Liam Walsh’s situation, it’s probably not in his or Coventry’s hands. If Bristol City have got an option on his contract they could pick it up and there’s not a lot Liam and Coventry can do. And if they don’t pick the option up I am sure Coventry will be straight in there to bang a good offer into him.”
Should Coventry succeed in winning promotion to the Championship, it will be interesting to see if they look to tie down the loan pair on permanent deals. Both Walsh and O’Hare have impressed over the course of the campaign and it awaits to be seen if Mark Robins wants the duo to join on a long-term basis.
