Sideways Sammy

After a promising start to life at Coventry City, a couple of errors have knocked Bobby Thomas’ confidence. A tall, mobile and well-built defender who is confident on the ball, started his time with the Sky Blues with a genuine aura of infallibility. Ever since that has been broken, he has struggled to tailor his game but there remains plenty of reasons to believe that Thomas will grow into a good centre-back at Championship football. Thomas is facing a crucial next few months in nailing his spot in the team down and learning how to impose himself at the highest level of football he has currently played at.

In his first few games for the club, Bobby Thomas really impressed with both his confidence on the ball and his timing in the challenge to make that right side of the defence his own. Thomas was able to execute a high-risk style of striding out of his wide defensive position to join attacks, knowing that he had the mobility and capability in the tackle to get back and recover quickly. Where Thomas has struggled later on has been in failing to get the timing of his challenges right and leaving his side of the defence exposed, which has also knocked his confidence in his ability to impact the game with the ball at his feet.

Bobby Thomas could benefit from a period of reverting to the basics of staying put at right centre-back, focusing on winning challenges and keeping things simple in possession before he can work his way back to doing the fancier stuff that he clearly has a desire to do. While having pressure on his place in the form of Joel Latibeaudiere may help Thomas focus on what he needs to do to stay in the team, maybe both he and the team as a whole would benefit from a settled back-line rather than the chopping and changing that has been happening over the past few months. There is no reason why Bobby Thomas won’t eventually grow into a good Championship centre-back, but there is work to do to get him to that level.