Barnsley 2 Coventry 1 - The Slump Continues....

No matter how bad things are going for Coventry City, the one thing we've been able to depend on over recent seasons is three points at Oakwell (Four wins from our last four fixtures at said ground). With that in mind, I guess I am not the only Coventry City fan fearing the worst for the second half of the 2010/11 season.

Coventry City are still only four points away from the Top 6 (Ignoring the fact just about every side around us has at least two games in hand), should every other result fall our way, but quite where those points are coming from is unclear. This is a side massively lacking in - amongst many other things - composure, as was proved by Gunnarsson's last minute miss which would have salvaged a point, though he is far from the biggest culprit in the side, and was probably MOTM versus Barnsley. 

The fact that Barnsley's opener was a 30-yard cracker, scored by Nathan Doyle (With less than three minutes played), rather than one of the soft goals we're prone to conceding, is of little consolation. The most technically gifted player at Coventry City, Freddie Eastwood, scoring an equaliser, raised hopes that Oakwell would continue to be our happy hunting ground - sadly, this proved not to be the case. Goran Lovre scored Barnsley's second, and the match-winner, with just under an hour played. 

Injury to James McPake a mere ten minutes into the match was further reason for concern - though it did finally give Martin Cranie the chance to play in his preferred position in the centre of defence .... before he was moved to left-back. Having waited all season for a proper left-back to play for Coventry City, the injury-prone Stephen O'Halloran wasn't even on the bench for this fixture, having made a twenty minute cameo versus QPR, and an unused substitute (Non-)appearance against Ipswich.

Our next game is against possibly manager-less Crystal Palace, followed by a league game against Sheffield United, under the leadership of their new manager, Mickey Adams. Following those games .... well, it definitely doesn't get any easier. 

TEAM: Westwood, Keogh, Wood, McPake (Cranie 11), Cameron, Gunnarsson, Carsley, Doyle, McSheffrey, Platt, Eastwood. SNU: Ireland, Thomas, Baker, Bell, O’Donovan, Jutkiewicz.