The importance of Coventry

[Selly]

A 4 point gap over Burnley going into our game with them would be a dream scenario.

Disagree - the dream scenario is a 10 point gap and therefore nowt to play for...

I would however take a 4 point gap going into that game if offered it right now

 

[Lord Eddard Muir]

Toughest game of the run in apart from Burnley. A quick glance at their forums leave you in no doubt the Cov fans absolutely hate us so their entire club will be up for this one like it’s a derby game, we have to be up it like a derby too, make The Lane a cauldron on the Friday night

I still think we need to be almost perfect from here on to go up as Burnley now seem to be adding goal scoring to compliment their ridiculous defence..

Vitaly important we get to the Burnley fixture in front of them so a point there is a good result for us as Turf Moor

What's the deal with that, are they still narked that we got annoyed with their whistle protest that time?

 

[Maidenhead]

We will beat these no sweat think we will win 7 out of 8 left

I think your still being influenced by the drugs

 

[Sheffsteel]

At this stage of the season it generally goes down to who has the bottle, rather than 'easier/harder' games. Who'd have thought Leeds would have taken 1 point from Pompey and QPR?

On Sunday we showed out bottle, we won a tight game - again! Surely after 38 games and 25 wins it's not all down to luck - as some would have us believe. Coventry will be a tough game, but Oxford away the week after will also be tough - they are fighting for their lives and have had a couple of decent results of late.

Folk can slag Wilder off all they want, but he knows his team, he knows his players, he knows who can do it for 60 mins or 30 mins or 90 mins or whatever. People underestimate the size of the rebuild last summer. We had to take a gamble on some quality players who have come with historical injury problems - see, without those injuries they would not have been in our pool of available players, they'd have been commanding bigger fees and attractive to bigger fish than we are atm.

Cooper - dodgy knees, turned out to be a blinder of a signing.
O'Hare - recent ACL, turned out to be a blinder of a signing.
Campbell - long term history of knee and other injuries, turned out to be a blinder of a signing.

I'll no go through the whole list of our players with a history of injuries - I've only got about 4 hours free today! But I'm sure you get the jist of what I'm saying.......... no we don't play free flowing, up and at em for 90 minutes football and win 3, 4, 5 - 0. We have to manage our games and our players availability, and the results show we aren't doing too badly at this, thank you very much!

So, on to the last 8 games ........ horrible really but I reckon somebody is going to miss out on automatic with something like 94/95 points - unheard of! But have no doubt, we are in a good place atm - Wilder will have them chewing on raw meat for the last 8 games. Can't wait!!!

Very much agree……don’t think people realise how difficult it is playing under pressure.
Nice passing free flowing football goes out of the window…..it’s all about character and which teams have that fighting spirit and bottle.

Hence why…..altho Leeds are better than us….I rate our chances better than there’s and it wouldn’t surprise me if Leeds finish 3rd.
When us and Burnley have off games we still tend to win….where as when Leeds have a poor performance they always seem to drop points.

The next 2 matches will tell us so much. We have a tough game against Coventry but Burnley play home to Bristol C then away to Coventry.

 

[bladesince64]

At this stage of the season it generally goes down to who has the bottle, rather than 'easier/harder' games. Who'd have thought Leeds would have taken 1 point from Pompey and QPR?

On Sunday we showed out bottle, we won a tight game - again! Surely after 38 games and 25 wins it's not all down to luck - as some would have us believe. Coventry will be a tough game, but Oxford away the week after will also be tough - they are fighting for their lives and have had a couple of decent results of late.

Folk can slag Wilder off all they want, but he knows his team, he knows his players, he knows who can do it for 60 mins or 30 mins or 90 mins or whatever. People underestimate the size of the rebuild last summer. We had to take a gamble on some quality players who have come with historical injury problems - see, without those injuries they would not have been in our pool of available players, they'd have been commanding bigger fees and attractive to bigger fish than we are atm.

Cooper - dodgy knees, turned out to be a blinder of a signing.
O'Hare - recent ACL, turned out to be a blinder of a signing.
Campbell - long term history of knee and other injuries, turned out to be a blinder of a signing.

I'll no go through the whole list of our players with a history of injuries - I've only got about 4 hours free today! But I'm sure you get the jist of what I'm saying.......... no we don't play free flowing, up and at em for 90 minutes football and win 3, 4, 5 - 0. We have to manage our games and our players availability, and the results show we aren't doing too badly at this, thank you very much!

So, on to the last 8 games ........ horrible really but I reckon somebody is going to miss out on automatic with something like 94/95 points - unheard of! But have no doubt, we are in a good place atm - Wilder will have them chewing on raw meat for the last 8 games. Can't wait!!!

Post of the season.

Brilliant assessment of our recent signings.

All the Wilder critics need to read this and then read it again.

 

[Harry's Game]

What's the deal with that, are they still narked that we got annoyed with their whistle protest that time?

That, jealousy we have been in the prem recently, that we took Hamer and COH off them and also the fact none of the other Midlands clubs really cares about them much so they have fermented in their head this deep rivalry with us.

 

[ancientblade]

big big game for us and with coventry selling out atmosphere should be fantastic our fans can play a big part and no excuses for us not selling out at the prices

 

[LurkerBladeS2]

That, jealousy we have been in the prem recently, that we took Hamer and COH off them and also the fact none of the other Midlands clubs really cares about them much so they have fermented in their head this deep rivalry with us.

Wasn't it also that they took the mick when we supported them with their protest against SiSu, but started throwing tennis balls on ONLY when we attached so we started singing that we loved SiSu?

 

[Pintor75]

We have to go into the last 8 games looking to win them all, it'll be difficult, ti state the obvious, but if we are to go up we should be beating teams like these, in the premiership Leeds & Burnley would be games we need to pick up wins against. The last few home matches against Coventry, Millwall, Cardiff & Blackburn are all boring teams who are mid table at best so let's not be going on about what a great club, dangerous opponents etc, get stuck in and it doesn't matter what happens to the rest if we win UTB

 

[BalticBlade]

I bet it boils their fans' piss when they hear other people refer to them as 'Coventry' much in the same way we get irked by being referred to as 'Sheffield'.

Is it really that difficult to call them by their full, proper name - Frank Lampard's In-form Coventry City?

 

[Houston_Blade]

I’ll leave the forum if they beat us because we’ll be swamped by idiots from the most beige place in the country telling us how good they are and how bad we are.

 

[3Cheers4Ramirez]

It's important because the 5 after it are all games we should win. So get 3 points out of the way here, and it looks very good. It would also take the pressure off winning every one of the 5. If we can win 5 and draw 1 of the next 6 that should leave us at least 4 points in front of Burnley going into that game

 

[Loco Blade]

Coventry is important as I need to take a piss at Corley services en route to London Town via the M6 and M6 toll . Otherwise it’s worth a miss TBH

 

[bakeblade]

Post of the season.

Brilliant assessment of our recent signings.

All the Wilder critics need to read this and then read it again.

Then he ruined it with Cannon

 

[Grizzly blade]

Let’s be right, Way we are playing they are all tough games!!
With things as tight as they are the pressure is on for all three teams and we will all drop points. Some against teams we should beat (Hull for example for us)
So for me this will be decided one way or the other away at Turf moor.

 

[Lord Eddard Muir]

Then he ruined it with Cannon

Cannon'll be fine once he gets going.

 

[JayGreen17]

Tough game but then so is Burnley v Bristol City next day. Its all about trying to widen the gap so the Burnley game isn't the big game it currently is

This is exactly what we need to do, we don’t want to be in a position of if Burnley win they leapfrog us, we need at least a 4 point gap by the time we play them.

 

[bakeblade]

Cannon'll be fine once he gets going.

Wishful thinking.
He doesn't seem to have any of the attributes needed to be a top striker. He's not quick, not very physical or skillful.
Looks like a mid to lower championship striker to me

 

[alcoblade]

Can’t really overstate how important the next one is.

It’s probably not a bad thing there are two weeks in between the matches.

Coventry have been on good form and we’ve almost started to have to grind a bit with players missing.

So, hopefully this is a little loss of momentum for them and a chance to regroup for us.

If we can pull out a Boro type performance then this leads into a better run of fixtures, though none are easy at this level.

A lot is made of Leeds having the best fixtures but once we have Coventry in 5th out of the way, they will have removed 16th place Swansea (who hopefully have a new manager and new manager syndrome) so the run in is almost identical. Burnley have a tricky tie against a very decent Bristol City

Our average placing after Coventry is 15.14. 1 remaining top 8, 3 middle 8, 4 bottom 8.

Leeds’ will be 16.2. 2 top 8, 1 middle 8, 4 bottom 8.

Burnley will be 11.14. 2 top 8, 4 middle 8, 1 bottom 8.

I’d be interested to see if he keeps faith in Ahmedhodzic or if he uses Holding to avoid getting embroiled in anything with Bassette.

As the season ends draws nearer, I'd much rather play the middle teams than the bottom 8.

 

[Sky Blues]

Loved some of the comments on this thread

Hate? Not at all. Total dislike for the imbeciles up the road though.

As said by a few Bassette will most probably not be playing. Wright is back from a long term injury. Been out since November and is still our top scorer by 3 goals.

Of course Hamer was a big loss but the 15m for him helped us to build the side we now have. O'Hare would have been a big loss but we replaced him with Rudoni. Rudoni is out injured but hopefully back for this game. He has been brilliant since Lampard took over. Dislocated his shoulder scoring a goal for us and it popped back out later in the game. Makes O'Hare look very average so keep your eyes off him Has played a very big part in our run of 10 wins in last 12 games until injured. Only 23 and looks like he can go all the way to the top. 5 goals 10 assists so far. Runs past players with the ball for fun.

Looking forward to this one. If it was a home game I'd be quietly confident of a win but as it's away would settle for a draw.

 

[UddersBlade]

Loved some of the comments on this thread

Hate? Not at all. Total dislike for the imbeciles up the road though.

As said by a few Bassette will most probably not be playing. Wright is back from a long term injury. Been out since November and is still our top scorer by 3 goals.

Of course Hamer was a big loss but the 15m for him helped us to build the side we now have. O'Hare would have been a big loss but we replaced him with Rudoni. Rudoni is out injured but hopefully back for this game. He has been brilliant since Lampard took over. Dislocated his shoulder scoring a goal for us and it popped back out later in the game. Makes O'Hare look very average so keep your eyes off him Has played a very big part in our run of 10 wins in last 12 games until injured. Only 23 and looks like he can go all the way to the top. 5 goals 10 assists so far. Runs past players with the ball for fun.

Looking forward to this one. If it was a home game I'd be quietly confident of a win but as it's away would settle for a draw.

Unlike some - I have a soft spot for Coventry going back years as I have an old mate from Cov from uni days back in the late 80’s. So I happy to see them doing well - although I much preferred Mark Robins to Frank Lampard.

You may have read on here that surprisingly we have just not been convincing in many games this season but have found ways to grind out results. The likelihood is that next Friday will be tight also - however be warned - occasionally we put in an excellent 45 mins (eg last one was Boro at home) so could blow anyone away if that happens again. My guess would be 2-1 to us or 1-1.

 

[Sky Blues]

Unlike some - I have a soft spot for Coventry going back years as I have an old mate from Cov from uni days back in the late 80’s. So I happy to see them doing well - although I much preferred Mark Robins to Frank Lampard.

You may have read on here that surprisingly we have just not been convincing in many games this season but have found ways to grind out results. The likelihood is that next Friday will be tight also - however be warned - occasionally we put in an excellent 45 mins (eg last one was Boro at home) so could blow anyone away if that happens again. My guess would be 2-1 to us or 1-1.

I'm fully aware of how you're playing and grinding out results. I watch your occasional game myself. That's why I would have fancied the win if at home.

We've been doing the same. Score 3 let 2 in. That's until last game against Sunderland with having Wright back and in form. They were absolutely awful. Worst team by far I've seen all season. Even Manchester United would beat them

Let's make a deal. You beat Bristol City and we'll beat Burnley the game after ours. They're at our place

 

[WORKSOPBLADE]

I'm fully aware of how you're playing and grinding out results. I watch your occasional game myself. That's why I would have fancied the win if at home.

We've been doing the same. Score 3 let 2 in. That's until last game against Sunderland with having Wright back and in form. They were absolutely awful. Worst team by far I've seen all season. Even Manchester United would beat them

Let's make a deal. You beat Bristol City and we'll beat Burnley the game after ours. They're at our place

Bit late… we’ve just drawn with them!!

 

[FlamingLip]

Unlike some - I have a soft spot for Coventry going back years as I have an old mate from Cov from uni days back in the late 80’s. So I happy to see them doing well - although I much preferred Mark Robins to Frank Lampard.

You may have read on here that surprisingly we have just not been convincing in many games this season but have found ways to grind out results. The likelihood is that next Friday will be tight also - however be warned - occasionally we put in an excellent 45 mins (eg last one was Boro at home) so could blow anyone away if that happens again. My guess would be 2-1 to us or 1-1.

Ha I'll also risk exposing my inner beige, I can't dislike Coventry solely because Highfield Road easily made my top 5 favourite grounds growing up! Looking forward to next Fri. Absolutely no idea how it'll go.

 

[Fernandopartridge]

That, jealousy we have been in the prem recently, that we took Hamer and COH off them and also the fact none of the other Midlands clubs really cares about them much so they have fermented in their head this deep rivalry with us.

I think you're reading too much into this, nobody I know cares

 

[Harry's Game]

I think you're reading too much into this, nobody I know cares

 

[3Cheers4Ramirez]

I believe we will beat Coventry because it is now crunch time and we need it more

Coventry fans.... did O'Hare used to take players on and other number 10 type things, or did I imagine that?

 

[Tom Bott]

Cannon'll be fine once he gets going.

Not for those who only follow football to find faults.

 

[3Cheers4Ramirez]

If Cannon was a 'when he gets going' signing he shouldn't have been signed in January. Mid promotion battle. For 10m

 

[KeyffSmyff]

Highfield Rd was usually my nearest top flight ground where I grew up. My Uncle was a Cov fan so we usually went up to see a game once a season. My most vivid memory was Malcolm McDonalds bow legs. The Ricoh was my daughters first game.