Coventry City struck transfer gold with Newcastle United agreement - they signed a goal machine | OneFootball

The Sky Blues will land few loan deals as successful as this one

Coventry City struck gold in their loan agreement with Newcastle United for Adam Armstrong in 2015.

The then-18-year-old was still attempting to break into the Magpies’ first team, but the decision-makers at St James’ Park viewed him getting minutes on loan as the best course of action.

The Sky Blues were going through a rough patch at the time and found themselves stuck in League One.

Armstrong couldn’t, in the end, deliver them back to the Championship, but there’s little more he could have done for the cause.

Coventry provided Armstrong with his big break in the senior game

Ahead of the 2015/16 season, Armstrong was a promising name rising through the ranks of the Newcastle youth system.

He’d already managed 19 appearances by the time he was 18, having made his debut at the age of 16.

Nevertheless, he was not yet an established first-team player, and was still looking for the chance to complete a full season with the senior side.

That didn’t look like happening again in the summer of 2015, so a loan was viewed as the best option to kickstart Armstrong’s senior career.

The Sky Blues could scarcely believe their luck with Armstrong

It certainly didn’t take Armstrong long to get going.

He notched back-to-back braces in his first two games for the club, against Wigan Athletic and Millwall, before adding another to his tally in his third game.

It was a sign of things to come, with the young striker ending the League One campaign on 20 goals and five assists.

Sadly, elsewhere on the pitch, things had not gone as smoothly and an eighth-place league finish saw them miss out on the play-offs.

Given the special talents of Armstrong they had access to that season, many will regret they didn’t make the most of him, using the striker as a springboard into the Championship.

They were made to rue that missed opportunity a season later, when a disastrous campaign saw them relegated to the fourth tier.

Coventry had little hope of getting Armstrong back

Given the disparity in Coventry’s league finish and Armstrong’s individual performance, there was little hope of the Sky Blues convincing the player, or Newcastle, to allow him back.

Boss at the time, Tony Mowbray, understandably expressed his interest in the possibility, but it was clear it was time to test Armstrong at the level above.

That’s exactly what the Magpies opted to do, sending the England youth international out to second-tier side Barnsley, where he managed 10 goal involvements.

Later seasons for Blackburn Rovers and Southampton in the Championship – clocking a career-best 28 goals for the former in 2020/21 – suggest he never had any business being in the third tier in the first place.

In Armstrong, Coventry landed upon a rare find; a level of talent not usually accessible to a third-tier side, but failed to use it to propel them back to the Championship.