City Hammered By Relegation Fodder!

By CovSid67
March 26 2006

How quickly things change. An outside bet for the play-offs, Coventry City were humbled and humiliated by rock-bottom Crewe. And if Crewe had been blessed with decent strikers, it could have been so much worse....

This was garbage. Garbage not seen for a good while either. Our away form is poor, but there is simply no excuse for this display. Micky Adams has stated that some people are playing for their next contract - this display would sugget many of them don't want it to be with Coventry City.

I'm presuming that, having taken four points out of matches against Sheffield United and Leeds, the team thought they merely had to turn up at Crewe to take another three points? To quote a former Coventry City manager (Who was possibly quoting somebody else!): "Complacency is the rock on which you perish...."

Billy Jones opened the scoring for Crewe with a mere four minutes on the clock, and Bougherra made it 2-0 after 12 minutes. Hard to believe these were the same XI Coventry players that should have beat Leeds.

Last season there were (Ridiculous) rumours that Coventry City wanted Crewe to stay up, as it would have cost them less in petrol to play that fixture rather than having to travel all the way to Gillingham, so the game was 'lost' (Though at least we joined in in the first half last season). I doubt there is to much difference between going to Crewe and any team likely to finish fourth from bottom - this was just an abject performance, not deserving of the 1,800 supporters that had made the journey....

Coventry pulled a goal back midway through the first half through Stern John, but, before anybody even had the chance to say "jolly well done chaps" and "we'll win this now", Crewe made it 3-1.

Adams had talked of 'doing a Mourinho' if he could see the players weren't performing from the early minutes onwards, and following Crewe's third, he did - replacing Shaw with Williams must have put the fear of Cliff Richard into Crewe! (Adams later apologised to Shaw for doing this). The majority opinion seemed to be that Page should have made way....

The second substitution on the stroke of half-time, Duffy on for Whing, was said to be tactical - stupid would be a better word. Whing might have been having an off day (With the exception of Fulop, who didn't?), but Duffy, like Hughes, has been out injured for a fair while, and is nowhere near match-fit. A half-time rollicking would probably have been a better idea.

The second half carried on in much the same way as the first, and it was merely a matter of when Crewe would add to their tally - though they were fortuitous with the only goal they did score in the second 45 minutes.

Just to show this was always going to be Crewe's day, a shot clearly going wide accidentally struck Taylor, and wrong-footed Fulop to make the score 4-1. Sadly, it didn't flatter the home side at all.

The third substitution - Hughes for Scowcroft - was also wrong. With the game being so one-sided, youthful enthusiasm should have been selected over clearly not match-fit - it wasn't (To quote Hughes after the defeat against Southampton reserves midweek: "I didn't feel all that sharp"). It was also noticed that Hughes was 'carrying extra baggage'.

Crewe must be hoping their last however many matches are against as tactically inept management, and seemingly not bothered opposition, then they might have the slightest hope of staying up.

Duffy managed to pick up the only booking of the game late on, taking his tally to nine for the season.

And while people might say this is only one match, and that we were never going to reach the play-offs anyway, every result that mattered went in our favour on Saturday: Preston and Cardiff drew (With Plymouth and Cardiff respectively), while Wolves were shocked at home by Sheffield Wednesday, and Watford were beaten at home by Millwall! I doubt many people got these five results (Including Coventry's) correct on their betting slips....

How sad that our match has effectively left us needing to win every game until the end of the season - all against far better opposition than Crewe too (With one possible exception on Easter Monday). Unlikely dream over .... especially as we still have some away fixtures left.

And, as if all this wasn't bad enough, this week the club also announced season ticket details for next season. Whatever happened to taking the opinions of supporters on board?

Unbelievably, the 'Early Bird' scheme is only running until May 6th - a mere week after this season has ended! If the club are goign to ask for peoples money this early, surely there should be a further discount?

And just because other clubs are horrendously over-charging, this doesn't mean we have to do the same thing! Once upon a time we led and others followed - maybe we should try dropping season ticket prices, and seeing if we can lead the way once again?

[Prices to follow when I find out where my daughter has hidden the piece of paper with the relevant information on....]