New boy Andy Butler will be welcomed into the Doncaster Rovers dressing room with open arms, says James Coppinger.
Centre back Butler unquestionably ticks the ‘leader’ box that boss Paul Dickov had identified as the most important attribute in any prospective new signing.
And stand-in skipper Coppinger agrees that Rovers will be better off with more characters of Butler’s ilk.
“Any dressing room would benefit from someone like that [with leadership qualities],” said Coppinger prior to the loan deal for the Sheffield United defender being confirmed.
“That’s what you want, and that’s what successful teams have - they have 11 leaders.
“When you’ve got young players in your team too, like we have, you need as many leaders as possible out there.
“If that’s what the manager thinks we need then that’s fine with the majority.
“As a player you always want to learn and develop and you want to do well, so people like that are more than welcome in the team.”
Coppinger, meanwhile, insists Rovers are not suffering from a crisis in confidence ahead of tomorrow’s visit of high-flying MK Dons.
“It’s not a confidence thing,” he said.
“It’s a reality check more than anything.
“No one here is under any illusions that it’s going to be a difficult season, in terms of what we’ve got in terms of the squad.
“The budget got slashed and it’s going to be hard to bring players in from what I understand the manager’s got to deal with.
“So we’ve got to work even harder on the training pitch and try and do well for the fans and everybody - because at the end of the day people’s contracts and livelihoods are at stake.”
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s game, he added: “It’s another difficult game.
“This league is hard. You’ve got a lot of good teams with a lot of good players
“Nowadays it’s hard to get contracts because you’ve got a lot of good players out there and also young lads who want to do well.
“League One is a difficult league to get out of.
“Obviously we’ve done it twice but you have to work hard every single day and when it comes round to Saturday you’ve got to be prepared for a tough game.
“It’s no different against MK Dons.
“It was probably one of the hardest games I’ve ever played in this division when we lost there two seasons ago.
“We know all about them. But we’ve got to concentrate on ourselves.
“Hopefully we can come out and put on a good performance.”