The Season So Far....

Apparently, ten games into any season you’ll be able to have a fair indication of how well you’ll do over the course of the season. So we’re now reached that mythical number (well, 11 after the Leicester game) how does it look like the Sky Blues will fare come May?

Well one thing that seems likely at this stage is that we’ll do better than many fans, myself included, expected in the close season. We’re still quite inconsistent, having won four, drawn four and lost three, but it’s a record that’s managed to get us into 11^th spot in the league, and would have been in the play-off spots had we got the win the overall performance against Leicester merited.

Some people may well point out that City always seem to get out of the blocks quickly, and we had our usual top-of-the-table stint after two games following a hard-fought 2-1 home win against Ipswich and an excellent 2-0 victory at Barnsley. 

The defence was expected to be a bit weaker following Dann and Fox going elsewhere, but hope was high that we’d show a bit more of an attacking threat with a winger and a playmaker now on the books, and these two games suggested this would be the case.

Unfortunately this was followed up by two lacklustre displays at Doncaster (0-0) and a 1-0 home defeat to Swansea , and a pathetic 3-0 defeat at Blackpool making it three games on the bounce without a goal meant the pre-season fears started to re-materialise and some vocal dissension leading into September.

It seemed the team was being set-up to compensate for the defensive short comings rather than focusing on its strengths, and a 1-1 home draw against Bristol was considered to be a good result given the team’s short-comings and our poor record against The Robins in recent years.

Then just as the consensus that we were in for yet another season of struggle seemed to have been decided on, once again the team upped their game against a good side and managed to overcome Sheffield United with a hard-fought 3-2 win.

Goals have been flying in at both ends ever since as City looked to play on the front foot a bit more, while still looking shaky at the back. City were overcome 3-2 by Preston in a slightly disappointing defeat due to the team again seeming unrecognisable from one half to the next. Middlesbrough were next up and the Jekyll and Hyde performances continued as City managed a rare event of coming from two goals behind to snatch a last-gasp draw.

A similar performance three days later, coming from behind to defeat Watford 3-2 meant the Sky Blue Army was once again looking at the glass half-full as they entertained local rivals Leicester, although a hard-working, largely dominant performance and sublime goal by Clingan wasn’t enough to take all the points in a 1-1 draw.

The team is relying a bit heavily on Best and Morrison for goals, both of whom already have six apiece, and should they hit a barren spell it could cause problems, although the loan market is an option if needed. The team’s still lacking in terms of pace as well, but the youth team seems to have it in abundance with Ashley Cain, Joel Grandison and Robert Ogleby, so maybe the odd well-managed cameo allowing them to take advantage of tired legs could give us that extra dimension in attack and get the fans excited, especially as they are ‘our own’. 

So despite the rollercoaster ride so far things aren’t going too badly overall, but as always it’s still impossible to predict how City might perform. If we can keep the more attacking mentality though, at least games will be entertaining, even if we lose as many as we win, hopefully expanding the poor turnouts so far this year. 

There’s potential for the team to get better as well, as our wide players haven’t featured as prominently as they might (Bell through injury, McIndoe finding his feet but slowly finding his form), Wright and Gunnarsson haven’t played nearly as well as they’re capable of yet and McPake has yet to return from injury to see if he can help shore up the leaky backline.

This being Coventry City, anything could happen from now until the end of the season and probably will. There’ll probably be one or two exceptional performances countered with a few abject capitulations, causing the fans to bounce from euphoria to despair, and although I think we’ll lack the consistency needed to compete for the play-offs we should be OK for mid-table.