Matt Grimes heads into the new season as one of Coventry City’s key on-field leaders, with his experience having played an important role in last year’s successful promotion push.

The 30-year-old arrived at the Sky Blues in January 2025, bringing to an end a 10-year spell with Swansea City, where he picked up plenty of lessons about leadership.

As Grimes gets ready for his next challenge — proving the doubters wrong and helping to lead a Premier League survival fight — he has spoken about how his own approach to leadership has changed over time.

While some captains and senior players prefer a fiery approach, trying to be the loudest figure in the dressing room and making their point with big displays of emotion, Grimes feels experience has shown him that this is no longer needed.

“If we’re having a stinker and I come in screaming and shouting at half-time, the lads aren’t going to take me seriously, because they know that’s not the type of person I am,” he told FourFourTwo.

That represents a major shift from the earlier stages of his career, with Grimes now believing that authenticity is crucial when it comes to leading a dressing room.

“I think gone are the days where you need to be the loudest, scream and shout,” he continued, stressing that leadership in the modern game has moved on from a time when the biggest voice automatically carried the most influence.

With more than 500 senior appearances to his name, Grimes is speaking from a position of real experience and consistency, and he believes setting the right example himself can be a far more effective way of bringing the group together.

That calm and measured mindset is likely to be especially important this season.

Coventry are beginning their first Premier League campaign since 2001 as one of the bookmakers’ favourites to go straight back down, but Grimes is convinced the squad can take valuable lessons from last season into the new one.

“We dominated at the start, had a wobble mid-season, but then recovered and won again,” he said, reflecting on a campaign in which Frank Lampard’s team eventually finished 11 points clear of the chasing pack.

“We won eight out of nine to cement our place at the top. Seasons like that don’t happen often.

“It will sink in eventually, but even now, I don’t think it’s fully sunk in,”