After looking on the verge of exiting the club just over 12 months ago, Jamie Allen has made himself one of Mark Robins’ must trusted performers. Far from the most talented or exciting player at the club, Allen’s industry and willingness to perform any role the manager asks him to is what makes him so important to Robins. As useful as Allen’s work-rate is for this Coventry City side, it is in the moments where he is required to provide something in terms of technical ability where he so often comes up short.
Capable of playing either in central midfield or further forward, Jamie Allen plugs a couple of important gaps in the Coventry City squad. While he isn’t first-choice in either position, he can be trusted to cover a lot of ground without the ball, which can facilitate the more talented players around him in getting into positions where they can affect the game. Jamie Allen’s key weaknesses are how difficult he seems to find it at times to control the ball on the move and to pick out telling passes. When the more technically-proficient players around him struggle, that is when Allen’s technical shortcomings become most obvious.
In an ideal world, Jamie Allen would be the kind of footballer the club would be looking to move on from. As useful as it is to have a willing runner in the team, having someone in Allen’s place who can make more reliable telling contributions to games would be even more so. At the moment, it is only the club’s financial limitations that is keeping Jamie Allen in a first-team role at a Championship club. To remain a player at this level over the longer-term, Jamie Allen really does have to add another level to his game in terms of technique.
Sideways Sammy 