Wednesday Woe As Two Men Go!

By CovSid67
November 19 2006

It's eleven years since Wednesday won away at Coventry. With their fine run of form lately, and our inability to play decent football, this was probably as good a chance as they will have in a while....

This was a slightly more entertaining game than we've been used to recently, helped massively by the sending off of two Wednesday players!

Marcus Hall replaced Elliott Ward in the centre of defence, with Clarke dropping to left-back from left midfield. Tabb also swapped from right midfield to left, with Birchall coming in on the right, while Adebola replaced the injured Stern John.

Wednesday started the brighter of the two sides, forcing plenty of corners in the opening 10 minutes, though their spell of pressure came to nothing.

With only 13 minutes gone, Page's attempt to play football rather than simply hoof the ball out of the danger area helped cost Coventry City the services of Don Hutchsion for a while. A mis-placed pass, which was too long for Hall, saw DH stretch for a ball he was never going to win, foul a SW player, and resulted in a stretcher being brought on, and a yellow card for the injured player! It was every inch a hospital ball, and that's where Hutchison ended up some time later....

Colin Cameron was brought on as DH's replacement, and was once again booed by certain idiots in the Coventry sections of the ground. Played in the centre of midfield, he enjoyed what was probably his best display of the season so far (Admittedly, partly helped by playing against nine for such a long period of the match!).

Wednesday were reduced to 10 men on 15 minutes after Wade Small stupidly raised an arm to Michael Doyle. He complained about the decision, but, having committed said crime right in view of the referee, he should have just been big enough to go straight away (I'm sure Michael Doyle did nothing to provoke him too!).

With 21 minutes gone, the 10 men of Wednesday took the lead with Brunt's corner deceiving everybody and going straight into the net. He seems to like playing against Coventry City....

A couple of supporters(?) were arrested for throwing coins at Wednesday players as they celebrated - something that just should not be tolerated, and will hopefully result in bans.

Minutes later fine work on the left saw McKenzie's cross diverted into the net by a Wednesday defender. The matchday compere ridiculously credited McKenzie with the goal.

A quality through-ball from Tabb should have seen Adebola shooting towards goal, but he made little effort to reach the ball, allowing a Wednesday defender to nip in and clearly pass back to his his keeper. No foul was given.

Tabb then intercepted a poor clearance from Crossley in the Wednesday goal, and the ball was crossed back into the Wednesday area. After a spell of ping-pong, a looping Doyle header was cleared off the line for a corner. From the resulting corner, Hall just failed to connect with what would have been some goal had he managed to do so!

Soon after, a fine Tabb effort smashed Crossley's right-hand post and rebounded out to safety.

A superb dummy from Cameron wrong-footed the Wednesday defence, and his fierce shot was well saved by Crossley. A Cameron blast a minute later was also blocked by the Wednesday defence.

Brunt then helped reduce Wednesday's numbers by another one, committing a professional foul by hauling down Birchall on the edge of the penalty area. Wednesday fans were up in arms about the decision, yet the reality was they couldn't really complain about either sending off. TV replays clearly showed the referee and linesman got the decisions right. In fact Wednesday were lucky not to be reduced to eight, as another player clearly struck Doyle in view of the referee, yet he allowed this one to go unpunished....

Neat work from Clarke helped set-up McKenzie on the stroke of half-time, but his effort just beat the angle of post and bar.

Such is the lack of belief in the current side, most people I spoke to at half-time asked if Coventry City could hold on for the draw!!

The opening ten minutes of the second half was like the Alamo, as Coventry rained shots down on the Wednesday goal, with their pressure - finally! - resulting in two goals for Leon McKenzie. The relief of finally breaking his duck was clear for all to see! Then Coventry City simply stopped trying quite as hard, despite the fact this was a real chance to improve their plus/minus goal average....

A first minute fierce cross from McKenzie was just missed by Tabb; a Clarke effort was well saved by Crossley on 48 minutes; Adebola's cross was blocked well on 49 minutes; before the pressure finally paid in the 50th minute, with Birchall's effort from outside the area being parried by Crossley, with McKenzie reacting quickest to make the score 2-1.

Minutes later Clarke's cross found McKenzie, with his effort being deflected for a corner.

On 55 minutes, Birchall's quality cross found McKenzie at the back-post, and his tap-in made it 3-1.

The chances dried up for Coventry after that, though Crossley was forced to make one superb point blank range save from Birchall. With the exception of one more effort, from substitute Kevin Kyle (Unsurprisingly brought on for Adebola, with Andrews, who it was rumoured was told he would never play for the club again, replacing Birchall too), who somehow managed to miss from right in front of goal, it was Wednesday who created the better chances, forcing Marshall to make four quality saves.

The Wednesday following of 4,000+ made plenty of noise throughout, and on any other day might have helped their side get a result with their support counting as an extra man - sadly for them they needed two extra men!!