When walking away from Coventry City in late September 2016, Tony Mowbray wished the Sky Blues well for the future, and as he prepares to face his former side, has heaped the praise on opposite number Mark Robins.

Robins has guided them from League Two to the Championship since taking charge for a second time in March 2017 and Mowbray is pleased with the progress the club has made.

They meet on unfamiliar ground, with Coventry playing away from their Ricoh Arena home for a second successive season, but Mowbray feels the turnaround in fortunes on the pitch is down to the work of Robins and his staff.

Mowbray’s time in charge spanned 76 games, but brought plenty of excitement during his one full season in charge by bringing together a young and vibrant team filled with Premier League youngsters on loan.

He said that was owing to the financial climate of the club, and upon their return to their respective parent clubs at the end of that season, Mowbray was left with a shell of a squad who started the season poorly before he chose to walk away.

They were relegated to League Two later that season, but Robins has led something of Sky Blues renaissance, much to Mowbray’s delight.

He said: “I think he deserves huge credit with what he’s achieved.

“I look at that team and there’s only Jordan Shipley who was there during my tenure as a young player, a huge turnaround of players, and you tend to find that happens when there’s very little finances.

“You’re either bringing young players through the Academy, I watched James Maddison play in the Europa League this week for Leicester City, amazing. Adam Armstrong was part of my team and scored 20 goals, Ryan Kent I watched play for Rangers in an amazing win in Belgium in the Europa League.

“Joe Cole was probably summarising on the television somewhere, Jacob Murphy who went to Newcastle for £12m was on loan, John Fleck who’s in the Premier League with Sheffield United, we had some very talented young guys and it was their first loans, very young, making their mark in the game.

“It was exciting that first season at Coventry getting 20,000 fans at the Ricoh Arena, the team was flying and we were expected to score three and four goals every week.

“It was a really exciting period but they went back to their clubs and we were left with the youth team really.

“Without money to go and buy anybody, it was a tough period. I was living three-and-a-half hours from home, my kids were very young at the time and in the end, I just wanted to go home and be a dad and bring my children up and put some discipline in their life.

“I wished Coventry all the best when I left, it’s amazing what Mark has managed to achieve and where they are and how well they’re playing I would suggest.”

Mowbray was particularly impressed with their display in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Swansea City which he felt they were unfortunate not to win.

And for that reason he’s anticipating a tough test for his side who are in need of three points after back-to-back defeats following the international break.

“Having studied them they gave Swansea a real game and should have won it late on,” he added.

“They are a dangerous game for us, they’re no push-overs, but it’s the next test for our group as I keep saying to them.

“One day you’re playing a team who was in the Premier League last season and then three days later you’re playing a team that was in League One and both are really tough.

“We’ll approach it with the expectation that we’ve got and ask questions of Coventry as they will us.”

“We’ll go with the standards we’ve set and see whether we can get three points.”