75 Games In: Ben Sheaf

Ever since signing for the club permanently over a year ago, Ben Sheaf has been on a quiet upward trajectory towards becoming one of the team’s best players. The type of midfielder who can keep things ticking over nicely on both sides of the ball, Sheaf has become an increasingly confident and reliable performer, which is a far cry from the nervy and error-prone player he was in his first year at the club. Ben Sheaf’s story at Coventry City has been about how patience in young players can be rewarded over time.

An intelligent midfield player, Ben Sheaf is strong at both reading the game and moving the ball forward. His best role in midfield is as a deep-lying distributor, however, Mark Robins appears resistant to pigeon-holing his midfielders, which has provided Sheaf the opportunity to develop the creative, attacking side of his game. While he isn’t quite a force in the opposing half, that nudge to become more aggressive and forward-thinking could well have been the key to Ben Sheaf’s improvement over the past year or so. Sheaf is a much more rounded and assertive footballer than he initially was for Coventry City, even if he retains a considered attitude to his game overall.

The notion that this Coventry City team is defined by Gustavo Hamer, Callum O’Hare and Viktor Gyokeres really cannot last much longer with Ben Sheaf playing at the level he currently is. With two of that three absent for much of the current season, Ben Sheaf has taken a notable step up in responsibility and performance level and is arguably currently the team’s best player. While that has coincided with a poor start to the campaign from the team overall, that is a reflection on how thin the squad is rather than Ben Sheaf not having become a high-calibre performer at Championship-level.