Coventry City Away Post Match Thread

[Leicfox]

Sous had 2 weeks to prepare his (superior) players for this game.

5 games, 2 points. Are you trying to tell me that Sousa's not to blame for this when he's the main change from last year?

How people aren't seeing this is totally beyond me.

It''s the middle of September and we still haven't won a league game.

You say "Sousa is the man to take us forward" - what is this based on exactly?

He is the main change, and change takes time. The defence apparently looked solid today, and its not as if were not creating chances, we just can't finish them. Im sure it will all come together.

Oblivoulsy the Sousa is the man to take us forward statement is my own opinion and if nothing else a gut feeling, the way were playing just needs alittle fine tuning and the chances were having need finishing and we'll be up there. I think we are one of the best teams in the Championship this season but results don't lie im aware of that, but and im gonna use the word IF we'd coverted chances we'd be in one of the top 4 spots now. Sousa is probably thinking the same thing, and is scratching his head as why the ball won't hit the net.

Were only 5 games in, and it's hysteria.

[MattyFromLE]

Me and a few mates where there.

Played them off of the park, made Coventry look very very limited. Kept the ball well, didn't look toooo shakey at the back. Hobbs and Morrison definately are the best partnership. Fryatt was a bit off, something doesn't seem right.

King, Wellens, Dyer for me were our best players.

Deserved all 3 points, Coventry will/should feel VERY lucky to come out with 1 point. Good game!

[leftsideoverhere]

Agreed entirely. But last season these same players were 5th in the league, now they're 23rd. The only change is the guy managing them.

You do understand that they're not clockwork toys, don't you?

There's any number of "changes" that possibly we (as fans) don't even see - but there are some obvious things like they're older, they've spent a summer being a little bemused by all the off-field goings-on at LCFC, they're not riding the crest of the L1 promotion but instead coming back to work after the disappointment of going out the play-offs at Cardiff - any / all of those could be having an impact on players' performances. We didn't spend the whole season in 5th place, and I'm damn sure we won't spend the whole of this season in 23rd.

Last season, without a doubt, our team over-performed. For the money spent, and the skill available, fifth place was a hugely impressive result, and in part it was down to us winning a fair few games where we probably didn't deserve to. Reading away sticks in my mind as a game almost as one-sided against us as today's was in the opposite direction. At Reading last year, we were so second-best it would have been stopped by the ref if it was a boxing match, and yet we snatched a goal and ran back up the M1 with all three points. This season we've not had that kind of luck. Quite the opposite. At Leeds in the league cup, a defender under no real pressure panicked and handled the ball in his own area. We won the game from the resulting spot kick. Today exactly the same thing happened, but because we had the latest in a long series of referees who can't see shit until it hits them in the face, we got no penalty. Add that to the two goals Andy King has had disallowed for being Welsh, and you begin to see what a tiny frail line it is that divides success from failure in professional sport.

Competent referees in the last five games and we'd be challenging for a play-off spot already. That's OK, the luck will turn at some point, and at least we're not West Ham. In the meantime, the one big difference between last season and this is that (with pretty much exactly the same team as Nigel Pearson used last season to grind out dour 1-0 wins) Paulo Sousa has turned us into a side who can actually play football. Passes - and to feet, not just vaguely hopeful balls to the far corner and everyone praying Lloyd Dyer can reach it before it goes out for a goal kick.

I'll be immensely grateful for a long time to Nigel Pearson for getting us out of League One at the first attempt, and then making us hard to beat and a realistic contender in the championship as well. I enjoyed seeing us win games we weren't expected to win, after years of seeing us lose games without even competing against teams we should have played off the park. But what I've realised over the last few weeks is that we'd got so used to Leicester being fooking abysmal that making us 'uninspiring' seemed like a real achievement. And in context, it probably was. But I've got to admit now, it was very self-limiting.

I'd love to see Leicester promoted. But I'd rather have us mid-table in the Championship and playing flowing football that makes you want to watch the highlights when you get home from the match than have us be promoted on the back of a style of football that only uses midfield players when we don't have the ball.

Apart from ttfn, though, it's reassuring to read a few more people starting to see the sense in hanging on to Sousa long enough to actually have him teach the players something. Maybe there's hope yet. Although knowing Milan, that's probably exactly the moment when he'll pull the trigger.

[easilee]

Hasn`t even had a decent run in the side yet and strikers thrive on confidence and he was dropped, what do you expect from the guy and had a nasty injury last year, if someone broke ur jaw, im sure ud be a bit reluctant in the tackle! Fryatt isn`t the only striker in this team, howard doesn`t score many, nguessan doesn`t get us many goals! so should we just get rid of them??? it`s always people getting on his back in here, our problems are not all down to him jeez!

which point do you take issue with?

The kid has NEVER been good in a one on one situation. Used to be offside more times per game than i care to remember.

How long do we wait for his form

He works his socks off i agree but that is because he has to, to compensate for all his wasted efforts.

When he's on his game he'll scare most defenders but he is rarely on his game fit or not.

I'm just a bit disappointed because i know how good a player he could be but something tells me he's no longer happy here and it is affecting his game. jeez

[Guest DavidJCW]

It's still fairly early days yet... I know it's not looking great being at the wrong end of the league table, but there have been plenty of positives from the games we've played.

If it gets to 10 games in and we've still not started picking up serious points, then I'll get slightly worried about our situation. For now though, I'm holding out on the hope we'll win one and push on up the league rapidly!

[ThorpeAstleyFox]

we have 2 points out of 15 , we cant win a game we dominated , we are in relegation form and people are happy ? ok. if i had known that this season was a transition year and not a real push for promotion after reaching the play-offs and being unlucky , i wouldn't have bought my season ticket. i just expected a real go for promotion not talking about 2points out of 15 and being happy . sorry lads and lasses thats just how it is for me . please dont insult me by saying we could still go up as we all know that isn't going to happen as sousa has already admitted this .

Between the 23rd March and 2nd April last season we only picked up 1 point out of 15 and there were other occasions where we only picked up 2 points out of 12 and 1 point out of 9 (twice). These runs happen in football. I've we're less than 3 points above the relegation zone after 12 games then I'll start to worry but I'm not going to write our play-off chances off after just 5 games!!!

[ThorpeAstleyFox]

Personally I think we should all lay off Fryatt, on his day he is 1 of the best in the division, he has not had much game time same with Waghorn & almost every player needs 3/4 games consistent to regain their match fitness. I did not think either Fryatt or Waghorn played anything like they could but I unfortuneately have seen far far worse displays in a city shirt.

This. Fryatt had a very difficult job today. We know that he isn't the fatsest striker in the world and Coventry's negative tactics meant that whenever he had the ball there were 4 players between him and the goal. This didn't just effect Fryatt either, there were plenty of times when we were just passing it sideways across the 18-yard box because we just couldn't work a way through the two banks of four behind the ball.

If somebody had shown me a video of today's game and I didn't know any better I'd say that it was the last game of the season and that the away team (Coventry) needed a point to avoid relegation and were playing a team much higher up the table. They played with 10 men behind the ball for the entire game and were looking to hit us on the break - which they managed once. They were time wasting from the first minute and the ball boys were clearly under instructions to aid this (there was one occasion where we won a corner and the ball boy rolled the ball on to the pitch on the opposite side to where it was to be taken). They were usually playing hoof ball and there passing was awful.

I know that people will point out that as bad as they were we still failed to beat them but this was one of the best drawing performances that I have ever seen. We retained the ball very well but also played some excellent long balls forward. Our final pass was sometimes lacking and we were unable to create many goal scoring opportunities (much different to the shots on/off target count by the way ) due to a stubborn Coventry backline. We could have had two penalties (one for handball and I felt that Fryatt should have gone down after rounding their 'keeper) and I can think of at least three occasions were the ball should have been cut back from the byline instead of players shooting (including one in the 90th minute where it looked like Howard couldn't miss).

Personally I'm looking forward to the next two games and an opportunity to see how we fare against the early pace setters.

[ThorpeAstleyFox]

Why can't people see Sousa's taking us backwards? We didn't go 5 games without a win at any stage last season and we've done it in the first 5 games this season.

Sousa needs to go NOW. Every game he's not sacked is another game we're wasting time and points. It's not nice football if we don't win.

People need to take their heads out of the sand.

If this is serious then (a) you're wrong - we didn't win between Coventry at home and West Brom away - picking up 1 point from 15 and (b) you're a moron.

[Guest ttfn]

(a) I acknowledged I was wrong further up the thread, but congratulations.

(b) I'm offering an opinion. It's based on reason rather than a hunch that things wil change for the better. You don't get bad luck 5 games running. I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong if we start to do well.

Leftsideoverhere makes some good points about last season. We did overperform and that game against reading was a travesty. But I also remember other games like scunny away and Coventry at home, both to a lesser extent, where we should have taken 3 points ourselves.

I'm just very concerned that it's September, we're 11 points off the pace and we've got QPR and Cardiff next.

If we still have 2 or 3 points in a week's time are people still going to be happy that we're winning the possession battle?

[fatman L1]

Very dissapointed with a draw we were all over them, they only had 1 effort on target and scored,

why do we pay £3m for a goal scorer and then play him on the wing with mardy matty in the middle.

Why doe's it take 15 passes to get the ball out of the 18 yard box?.

Bring back the king o'neil

[Babylon]

Bring back the king o'neil

Well done, you just lost all credibility. Do you remember how we started under "king O'Neil"?

[davieG]

You do understand that they're not clockwork toys, don't you?

There's any number of "changes" that possibly we (as fans) don't even see - but there are some obvious things like they're older, they've spent a summer being a little bemused by all the off-field goings-on at LCFC, they're not riding the crest of the L1 promotion but instead coming back to work after the disappointment of going out the play-offs at Cardiff - any / all of those could be having an impact on players' performances. We didn't spend the whole season in 5th place, and I'm damn sure we won't spend the whole of this season in 23rd.

Last season, without a doubt, our team over-performed. For the money spent, and the skill available, fifth place was a hugely impressive result, and in part it was down to us winning a fair few games where we probably didn't deserve to. Reading away sticks in my mind as a game almost as one-sided against us as today's was in the opposite direction. At Reading last year, we were so second-best it would have been stopped by the ref if it was a boxing match, and yet we snatched a goal and ran back up the M1 with all three points. This season we've not had that kind of luck. Quite the opposite. At Leeds in the league cup, a defender under no real pressure panicked and handled the ball in his own area. We won the game from the resulting spot kick. Today exactly the same thing happened, but because we had the latest in a long series of referees who can't see shit until it hits them in the face, we got no penalty. Add that to the two goals Andy King has had disallowed for being Welsh, and you begin to see what a tiny frail line it is that divides success from failure in professional sport.

Competent referees in the last five games and we'd be challenging for a play-off spot already. That's OK, the luck will turn at some point, and at least we're not West Ham. In the meantime, the one big difference between last season and this is that (with pretty much exactly the same team as Nigel Pearson used last season to grind out dour 1-0 wins) Paulo Sousa has turned us into a side who can actually play football. Passes - and to feet, not just vaguely hopeful balls to the far corner and everyone praying Lloyd Dyer can reach it before it goes out for a goal kick.

I'll be immensely grateful for a long time to Nigel Pearson for getting us out of League One at the first attempt, and then making us hard to beat and a realistic contender in the championship as well. I enjoyed seeing us win games we weren't expected to win, after years of seeing us lose games without even competing against teams we should have played off the park. But what I've realised over the last few weeks is that we'd got so used to Leicester being fooking abysmal that making us 'uninspiring' seemed like a real achievement. And in context, it probably was. But I've got to admit now, it was very self-limiting.

I'd love to see Leicester promoted. But I'd rather have us mid-table in the Championship and playing flowing football that makes you want to watch the highlights when you get home from the match than have us be promoted on the back of a style of football that only uses midfield players when we don't have the ball.

Apart from ttfn, though, it's reassuring to read a few more people starting to see the sense in hanging on to Sousa long enough to actually have him teach the players something. Maybe there's hope yet. Although knowing Milan, that's probably exactly the moment when he'll pull the trigger.

Well stated and a good read, only time will tell whether Sousa can turn us into a scoring, winning team but the signs are looking good even if his time at Swansea doesn't auger well but we have different players to them and new players that need time to bed in now is not the time to panic.

[fatman L1]

30 shots on target in 5 league games yet we've scored 4 goals? How the hell is that Sousa's fault? That's not even accounting for the amount of shots we've had off target and apparently we've had over 50 corners in 5 league games as well. Certainly more than enough chances to score plenty of goals and win games.

Sure, it's easy and narrow-minded to blame the manager for our shortcomings, but all he can do is set the players up and send them out. Once they cross the white lines, he cannot do much and if we're not clinical enough when we do get chances, that is the fault of the players, not the manager.

don't know where you get your stats from, i have been to every game this season and i don't think we have had anything like the amount of shots that you state 80 shots in 5 games behave, and you can blame sousa when you pay £3m for a strike and then play him on the wing

[Babylon]

rather than a hunch

Do you don't think other peoples opinions are based on the fact we were the better team against Boro, the better team against Cov, we battered Palace second half and were the better team against reading (in my opinion, some would say it was 50/50, we were definitely the better in the second half).

We could easily have had a point at palace, a point against reading, and 3 against Boro and Cov but for a different ref, a bit of luck or a striker who is on form. We can't live off ifs and buts all season, but at this moment in time there are quite a few signs we will be ok in the long run.

You say that your opinion is based on fact, from what I can see your opinion is based on one fact alone... points on the board. Ultimately that's what matters of course, but not after 5 games. If we were playing crap then everyone on here would agree with you, but we aren't.

[davieG]

don't know where you get your stats from, i have been to every game this season and i don't think we have had anything like the amount of shots that you state 80 shots in 5 games behave, and you can blame sousa when you pay £3m for a strike and then play him on the wing

According to the OS states for the 5 league games we've had:

40 shots on target (5, 10, 4, 10, 11),

27 off target

52 corners.

[Thracian]

Seems to me that Sousa has already achieved the unlikely and completely changed our approach to one that might enable us to eventually compete with the best.

And that in a fraction of the time I expected and with some players clearly making his job more difficult with their discontent.

Already on three or four occasions (counting the win at Leeds) our football has improved beyond recognition from the tedious and limited caution of Pearson's approach.

But one glaring problem remains. How to score goals. There are several points I'd like to make on that based on what I've seen so far.

a) We simply don't have enough people driving into the box when we do get a break. To see good low crosses running right across the penalty area some six yards from goal is ridiculous. We need fast strikers simple as that and we need more periphery players than King to get in where it counts.

b) Fryatt and Waghorn both looked unfit yesterday and there is no excuse for that, either from the players' point of view or the club's. Strikers have to be sharp. Times yesterday there were clever through balls into space behind the defence and we need to have players who are alert to them.

c) Once again I mention the dead ball situations. We've probably had more corners per game this season than I can remember in recent seasons yet we're getting nothing from them. Nor from free-kicks.

On the evidence of our play the coaching in this area is either hopeless or non existent. Basically we should vary our corners and free-kicks all the time. There needs to be planning, practice and execution...with the aim of posing different problems for the defenders and making them unsettled.

d) I'm not against having one striker and other players supporting quickly from behind but that idea is ridiculous if the one player is a selfish, blinkered, one footed footballer like Fryatt.

And frankly, apart from not being noticably selfish in the main, Waghorn. despite his attributes, has the same limitations. For a single striker you need a mobile lay-off player, someone who sees the pictures and can move the ball quickly and naturally left or right.?

e) We need to work on making our through passes more precise and better weighted. Too many yesterday were overhit. But at least the concept is there now.

f) We have somehow limited the chances of us scoring goals by not preparing good free kicks, not having an aerial threat, using Fryatt who cannot generally score from distance or with his head, and by fielding too many non-scoring players to begin with.

This has to change and we should think of the potential goal threat from all our outfield positions. Look how often Stearman and Sheehan used to threaten - but it rarely happens now.

Similarly Walsh and Elliott were massive aerial threats going forward under O'Neill but we don't have that threat today. Oakley and Wellens rarely score either - and altogether it's far too great a handicap.

The above is just for starters when it comes to attacking. In that aspect we seem to operate with the naivity of a parks outfit. As I've said before, winning is about attending to detail. Yesterday we had so much of the ball, created good situations with our passing but still lacked for the final details.

I wonder sometimes if there is anyone at the club properly analysing our play and amassing evidence of our shortcomings.

It is such an easy thing to do. For instance how many corners did we have and what was the outcome? Or how many times did Berner get into the final third and what was the outcome? Once the evidence is there and indisputable, you can work on solutions and improvements.

[MikeyT]

From SSN website.

We actually get praise for once.

Andy King grabbed a deserved late leveller as Leicester had to settle for a point despite dominating for long periods against Coventry.

Clive Platt headed home his first goal for the Sky Blues five minutes before the break as the home side looked destined to somehow take all three points at the Ricoh Arena.

But King produced a superb lofted finish 14 minutes from time as the visitors' superb passing football eventually produced an end product.

The impressive Martyn Waghorn, making his second debut for Leicester after signing permanently from Sunderland, had handed the Sky Blues a firm warning had they needed one 11 minutes earlier when he headed against a post.

Coventry could count themselves lucky to still have their unbeaten home record intact although they have now won just one of their last 13 encounters against Leicester.

Aidy Boothroyd and opposite number Paulo Sousa made a combined total of 11 changes going into the derby clash.

Block

And it was the visitors who were by far the better of the two sides from the off with Sky Blues centre-back Ben Turner doing well early on to block efforts from both the lively Lloyd Dyer and Waghorn.

The Foxes continued to orchestrate well-worked approach play as the half wore on but, crucially, Keiren Westwood - back between the posts after he and Boothroyd drew a line under their public contract dispute - was yet to be seriously tested.

Matty Fryatt rounded the Republic of Ireland international before firing another Leicester chance wide from an acute angle as Coventry struggled to see any of the ball.

Boothroyd was left with no choice but to match the visitors' system as Michael McIndoe replaced Gary McSheffrey, who appeared to be carrying an injury, after 36 minutes.

And the substitution paid dividends just four minutes later as Coventry took the lead against the run of play.

McIndoe, with one of his first touches, delivered a pinpoint cross for Platt who shrugged off the attentions of Jack Hobbs to head down into the bottom corner and hand City a fortuitous half-time advantage.

Front foot

Sousa's side started the second half in the same way they started the first, firmly on the front foot.

Waghorn brought a good save from Westwood before Dyer also forced him into action.

Coventry's rearguard was now coming under serious pressure and Waghorn came closest to finding the net for Leicester when he headed Matt Oakley's cross against a post.

Westwood then did well to turn Dyer's drive for a corner before King finally levelled matters with his second goal of the season.

Jordan Clarke and Turner made a mess of their defensive duties and King lobbed the ball over the advancing Westwood with a superb finish that dipped under the crossbar.

Leicester made all the late running in search of a winner but it was not to be as Coventry escaped with a point.

[sbfox]

I'm very happy to see that the majority of the board are now coming around to Sousa's style and the knee jerk reactionaries that were around after Burnley away have gone very quiet - ttfn aside. We're playing football that we could sustain in to the Premiership, rather than hoofball that any Prem back four could deal with. I somehow don't think that a combination of John Terry and Alex would fail to deal with a hoof up to Steve Howard...

This said, there is one failing that I can see hindering our return - goal scoring. Yesterday, we played some quick pass and move stuff in the middle, we fed the channels to the wide men running through and we even had the confidence to mix up our play when this approach got stale and fed it through the middle to feet. We're just missing a confident striker (or two) who has the vision to make those surging runs in the box, or simply put their foot through the ball when they're 12-18 yards out. I still think Waghorn needs a few games to get match fit, but we know what he's capable of and he IS a striker that can score the tap-ins and the longer range goals, eg. QPR at home last year. I'm still unconvinced about Fryatt... Its all well and good having a striker that thrives on confidence, but if its taking him 3,4 maybe 5 games to build his confidence and get scoring, those are wasted games when he's not scoring. He is also TERRIBLE at one on ones. Anyone remember that chance he should've bagged in the first leg of the playoff against Cardiff?

This all aside, I think we now have the foundations of both quality players AND now a quality football playing team. We're not there yet of course, we've only played 5 competitive games, but I'm even more confident after the last two games.

[Lillehamring]

I'm just trying to offer a reasoned opinion,

Sousa's record in the Championship is pretty mediocre. There's all kinds of discontent going down and we can't buy a win.

Seems pretty clear cut to me.

I am offering reason. Others are offering hunches that it will get better, Logic suggests it won't.

sorry, i know you have been battered on this thread for this statement and similar - but to declare that your opinion is based on reason just doesn't rub.

unless, of course, by reason you mean a knee-jerk response dismissing dozens of factors ranging from luck through lack of preparation due to the massive changes at the club to sousa not yet using some of the players he has at his disposal, and many more things in between.

sacking the manager after 5 games is madness and completely reasonable, especially when the majority of fans are pleased with the progress we are making (despite this not equating to points). there are a lot of teams struggling in this league, and a couple of decent results all of this will be forgotten.

and how you can talk about 'logic' when you are talking about something as random and unpredictable as professional sport, that is just plain silly.

before the season started people were widely expecting that we would be under threat of being caught out on the break and conceding goals in general due too the open and attacking nature of sousa's football, so, it's happened but without end product at the other end.

to see a team playing decent passing football and carving out more chances than we could ever have dreamt of a few seasons back, and as a result seeing the potential to start winning games seems pretty reasonable to me, not just a hunch. as i said it's a random thing football, we could play crap against QPR and cardiff and get a fluke OG and a peno and 6 points, you never know, there's no logic, no hunches just belief.

far from burying our heads in the sand, we are stretching our necks above the cloud of a few lopsided results, and looking at the bigger picture and the season spread before us.

[Lillehamring]

Well stated and a good read, only time will tell whether Sousa can turn us into a scoring, winning team but the signs are looking good even if his time at Swansea doesn't auger well but we have different players to them and new players that need time to bed in now is not the time to panic.

OMG, things must be on the up - i can't remember the last time you posted something like that :w00t:

[Lillehamring]

a) We simply don't have enough people driving into the box when we do get a break. To see good low crosses running right across the penalty area some six yards from goal is ridiculous. We need fast strikers simple as that and we need more periphery players than King to get in where it counts.

c) Once again I mention the dead ball situations. We've probably had more corners per game this season than I can remember in recent seasons yet we're getting nothing from them. Nor from free-kicks.

On the evidence of our play the coaching in this area is either hopeless or non existent. Basically we should vary our corners and free-kicks all the time. There needs to be planning, practice and execution...with the aim of posing different problems for the defenders and making them unsettled.

e) We need to work on making our through passes more precise and better weighted. Too many yesterday were overhit. But at least the concept is there now.

f) We have somehow limited the chances of us scoring goals by not preparing good free kicks, not having an aerial threat, using Fryatt who cannot generally score from distance or with his head, and by fielding too many non-scoring players to begin with.

hopefully, a lot of this can be remedied by playing Yuki Abe.

[lcfc_jme]

don't know where you get your stats from, i have been to every game this season and i don't think we have had anything like the amount of shots that you state 80 shots in 5 games behave, and you can blame sousa when you pay £3m for a strike and then play him on the wing

I have absolutely no idea where you get that I said we've had 80 shots from, but then again, it's hardly suprising you've struggled to read it properly when I see you've also posted:

Very dissapointed with a draw we were all over them, they only had 1 effort on target and scored,

why do we pay £3m for a goal scorer and then play him on the wing with mardy matty in the middle.

Why doe's it take 15 passes to get the ball out of the 18 yard box?.

Bring back the king o'neil

Hmmmm. "King MON" was especially popular at the beginning and hit the ground running, yes?

As davieG's states, we've actually had 40 shots on target in 5 league games this season as opposed to the 30 I thought it was, so if you've managed to miss all / the majority of them, I'd seriously question what you've been doing whilst watching us or whether you'd been watching us at all..

[Guest Mee-9]

Really enjoyed yesterday.

Atmosphere was decent round us, Alot better than I expected.

Soon the performances will turn into results. There are alot of positives to take from yesterday, but also the biggest negative is that we couldn't stick the ball in the net.

[Swalker]

Any thoughts on why Dennis Wise was there and why the clown decided to sit as close as possible to the Leicester fans?

[Wymsey]

Any thoughts on why Dennis Wise was there and why the clown decided to sit as close as possible to the Leicester fans?

Wanted love obviously