The 10 best players Coventry City have let go on a free transfer (Ranked)
Coventry City have let go off numerous players worth eight figures, on a free transfer.
With the clubs obviously not being as cash-rich and contracts often being shorter, free transfers are the lifeblood of the Football League.
Although they have had a taste of Premier League action, Coventry City are no exception to this rule of signing and letting players go for £0.
With the help of Transfermarkt, we have ranked the top ten most valuable players to be let go on a free by Coventry, notably looking at their market value at the point they were moved on by the Sky Blues
Those that just missed out on the top ten include current Wales boss Rob Page, the one and only Joe Cole, goalkeeper Keiren Westwood and in eleventh place, Youssef Sofiane.
Take a look below…
Marlon King is number ten – he joined Coventry City after being released by Wigan Athletic.
King had a strong year for the Sky Blues in the Championship but then when he was on the verge of signing a new deal, he instead chose to joined Birmingham City which didn’t go down well amongst the Birmingham hierarchy.
Mikkel Bischoff is next up and like King, he only played for Coventry for a single season as is representative of the EFL landscape.
The Dane hardly featured for Manchester City and so moved on to another side that play in blue where his luck didn’t change. He swiftly moved on once again and landed in his home country where he became a regular for Brondby.
Don Hutchison may be better known to some now as a pundit and commentator in the world of football but he was first and foremost, a player. He joined Coventry on loan from Millwall and after that season was reasonable he signed permanently and stuck around for another year in the newly built Ricoh Stadium.
Hutchison is the first name on this list whose value exceeded £1 million when he left Coventry for a free, as per Transfermarkt.
His voice can now be heard on talkSPORT and ESPN.
Valued at the same amount as Hutchison when they moved on from City is Icelandic international Aron Gunnarsson. He played in midfield as the minnow country created history by knocking out Roy Hodgson’s England at Euro 2016 in the most dramatic of circumstances.
Gunnarsson was with Coventry for a few seasons before he joined Cardiff City, with who he is most synonymous. He made nearly 300 league appearances for the Bluebirds across both the Championship and the Premier League and he is still playing now over in Qatar, having departed Wales in 2019.
Steve Staunton certainly isn’t playing anymore having retired nearly two decades ago. Since hanging up his boots, the defender has gone on to manage the Republic of Ireland as well as Darlington FC.
Staunton plied his trade for Coventry between 2005 and 2007, joining the club after a successful second spell with Aston Villa.
Into the top five we go with Dutchman Arjan de Zeeuw who has left football behind and then some. He revealed on a podcast with a former teammate of his Emmerson Boyce that he is now in the police force as a detective, saying “It sounded a little bit like a boys’ dream – being in fast cars and having a gun.”
Back to the on-the-pitch action and de Zeeuw may have accrued over 180 league appearances for Wigan Athletic across two spells, where he crossed paths with Boyce, but he was only a Coventry man for a single season as has been common on this list.
David McNamee made a big money move to Blackburn Rovers but it didn’t quite work out for him at Ewood Park in the top-flight.
He was more at home with the likes of Coventry and Plymouth Argyle in the second tier for who he played two years at each. When he swapped the former for the latter on a free transfer, McNamee was valued at just under £1.2 million and so the Green Army got themselves a gem of a deal, although it didn’t work out as seamlessly as they would have hoped.
The first man on the podium is journeyman defender Elliott Ward, who retired from football just two years ago. Ward began his career with West Ham United after graduating from their academy and he called it a day whilst with Chelmsford City.
Ward made the most appearances in his career for Coventry, hitting three figures in the Championship between 2006 and 2010. He cost City £1 million from the Irons and he was valued at about £200k more when he eventually moved on.
