Wrote this yesterday but never got on wifi to put it up
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Although the result was disappointing in some ways, despite being one I’d have taken before the match, I think there were more positives to take from last night’s performance than the preceding one v Shrewsbury.
DW, clearly with Bergen’s concerns in mind, went with a diamond formation in midfield. The make up of this was fairly fluid with seemingly only Doyle retaining his position throughout. In the first half hour especially we retained the ball better than Saturday, looked a much more solid unit and created good openings.
It did however mean we were lacking in width – this ended up causing two problems. First, Blackman and Cofie kept drifting wide to try and compensate and this meant there was often a huge distance between them and they couldn’t get involved or keep the ball up front. The second problem was that it made it easy for Coventry to tweak their set up in the 2nd half to cause us problems. Whereas in the first half they did very little, in the 2nd they moved players much wider and had loads of room to get at us.
If we’d taken our first half chances (Cofie, McDonald, Maguire all could/should have scored), the game would have been pretty much over by half time. As it was, we ended up being a shade fortunate to still be in the game when Blackman got the equaliser.
For most of the game we worked some excellent positions, almost at will, however our final pass/cross/shot was consistently very poor all night.
Few thoughts on some of the players:
McMahon – much better performance than Saturday. A little worried that he doesn’t quite fit with the football we like to play though. He’s decent technically and can get forward but he isn’t the Walker/Lowton ultra-attacking type that we might need (especially given our lack of options in right midfield).
Hill – like McMahon, he doesn’t quite fit with DW’s preferred style. He was very solid last night though and was an improvement on Williams.
McAllister – definitely adds a goal threat to a team which has few. However, I’m not convinced he has the fitness, touch or speed of thought/movement for this level of football.
McDonald – hate to think how we’d look without him in the side but, for the time being, he’s not up to the standards he set last season. Last night, he probably gave the ball away more than he did in the whole of last season. Sure it’s just a sharpness thing though and he’ll improve and be crucial for us.
Miller – did really well when he came on. Links the play well, looks sharp and caused Coventry problems. Got to be close to a start.
Overall, some encouragement to be taken from the performance. The squad looks woefully thin though, particularly in terms of wide options, and we’re incredibly reliant on McDonald from a creative point of view. Although they did cause us problems in the 2nd half, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Coventry have a season struggling in the bottom half of the table, I thought they were very poor indeed.
