After a rather poor game against Palace in mid week I expected Keano to have the lads fired up for the game and pile the misery on to a struggling Coventry team. We were missing all three of our men of the moment; Evans, Liam Miller and David Connolly. Stan Varga came in for Evans and Miller was replaced by Leadbitter. Connolly, who was missing due to being accidentally kicked in the face from Jonny Evans, was replaced by Stern John. Both Stokes and Hysen dropped to the bench and were replaced by Murphy and Wallace respectively. Despite Keane becoming known as a tinker man, he had begun to play a settled team, so it was a surprise to see so many changes.
These changes didn’t have a good effect on the team as for the majority of the first half we were all over the place and didn’t come out of the blocks, which Coventry did. Coventry walked straight threw our defence and should have been ahead within the opening ten minutes, fortunately for us though Darren Ward was on top form and made a fantastic save to keep us in the game. Normal service was resumed from Nosworthy today. After playing well in the last couple of games he was poor again today. He seemed unable to do simple passes and occasionally forgot how simple his role is and tried to be over elaborate rather than do it simple and move it. Thankfully though the next ten minutes were better and we started to get into the game more. During a good move forward we were awarded a free kick midway into the Coventry half, one of the few free kicks given from our inept referee who looked as though he should have been refereeing a pub game. From this free kick, which was down the right wing, Ross Wallace whipped in a fantastic teasing ball towards the back post and it was headed back across the box from Stan Varga. As the ball floated back across the six yard box Dwight Yorke smashed the ball home with a typical poacher’s goal.
However, this turned out to be the highlight of the first half. We were very poor during the half and didn’t deserve our lead.
The second half wasn’t much better than the first and Coventry seemed to want it more than us which was worrying for a team supposed to be aiming for promotion. Coventry should however have drawn level; Ward was again on top form and made a fantastic save to deny them. Changes needed to be made to liven the team up and they were made. Wallace was replaced by Hysen and Murphy replaced by Stokes, neither player did enough to stay on the pitch. They turned out to be good substitutions as Hysen and Stokes injected some much needed pace into our team and linked up well together. Danny Simpson made his home debut coming on for Leadbitter who had been lacklustre for the whole game and should have been taken off much earlier. Simpson is definitely an attacking full back as within two minutes of coming on he was in the opposing team’s six yard box! He looks a good prospect for the team and will hopefully get a run of games at right back.
After threatening on the attack Toby Hysen won us a corner and took it himself. The ball was headed out of the box and went to Yorke. Yorke played the ball into, his then centre midfield partner, Whitehead, who played a great ball into the on running Edwards. Edwards unleashed a quality shot which rocketed into the back of the net from all of 30 yards. Not to take any credit away from Edwards but the ball did take a wicked deflection from a Coventry player. Three points in the bag.
We could have made it three points and three goals but John’s late header went agonisingly wide of the post.
MOTM – Darren Ward, some terrific saves kept us in the game and he’ll no doubt make more of these in the coming months.