FORMER Saints boss Nigel Adkins has topped a Coventry City fans’ poll as to who they want to see as the Sky Blues’ next permanent manager.

The one-time Premier League outfit are currently battling to avoid relegation to the fourth tier, and sacked Steven Pressley on Monday.

Adkins, recently sacked himself by Reading, won 18.8 per cent of the votes in a Coventry Evening Telegraph poll.

Adkins has won four promotions in his managerial career, two of them with Scunthorpe and two in successive seasons with Saints.

However, ex-Middlesbrough boss Tony Mowbray is the bookies favourite for the vacant job.

Caretaker boss David Hockaday and former Acrrington Stanley boss James Beattie close behind.

Both those names also have Saints links – Beattie having been a regular scorer for the club and Hockaday a coach at the club unde Jan Poortvliet and Mark Wotte in 2008/09.

The Sky Blues are currently looking for their 12th manager in 13-and-a-half years since the sacking of Gordon Strachan in September 2001.