Sideways Sammy

Coventry City escaped from Elland Road with a draw thanks to a big defensive effort and one or two slices of fortune along the way.

The first-half was fairly serene for the Sky Blues, who kept their hosts at arm’s length and had some decent spells to ask some questions at the other end. The second-half, however, required a bigger effort to claim a point, with Leeds United appearing to break the resistance with a smart finish from Cryscencio Summerville after Georginio Rutter picked a pass through Coventry City’s midfield phalanx.

Fortunately, Bobby Thomas made the bold decision to linger forward after a rare stride forward from defence and was picked out by a looping Tatsuhiro Sakamoto cross to level the scores eight minutes after Leeds’ opener. For a period, the Sky Blues threatened to claim the win, with Callum O’Hare and Haji Wright ramping up the attacking threat from the bench.

However, Coventry City soon retreated into their defensive shell to hold on for a point in the closing stages. Leeds United managed to work a golden opportunity for Dan James to get clean through in the final minutes, only for a scrambling Bobby Thomas and a poor attempted finish from the Wales international to ensure that the points would be shared.

The Containment Strategy

Mark Robins nailed his colours to the mast for this game by naming a starting line-up that featured six players whose preferred position is in defence. Centre-back Joel Latibeaudiere was deployed in a midfield holding role, with Jay Dasilva playing on the left wing in a 4-5-1 shape. Amid a congested run of fixtures in December and away to one of the best teams in the division, focusing on defence-first made sense as a strategy.

In the first half, Coventry City did a good job of keeping Leeds United at arm’s length. Apart from one or two moments – with the most notable one coming from a sloppy Ben Sheaf pass across his own defence – the away side restricted Leeds to very little, and it was looking to be a fairly serene afternoon in goal for Brad Collins. That midfield block of Joel Latibeaudiere, Ben Sheaf, and Josh Eccles put in some key tackles to break up Leeds’ attacking flow, with Jay Dasilva and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto fulfilling their defensive duties as the wide midfielders to ensure a diligent display from the Sky Blues.

With Callum O’Hare, Haji Wright, and Kasey Palmer held in reserve on the bench, the plan looked to be to keep the game tight until the latter stages when Mark Robins could make those attacking changes. While Leeds United managed to grab what looked to be a crucial opening goal before the hour mark to disrupt that plan, Bobby Thomas’ bold decision to linger forward from a rare attacking foray from the centre-back to meet a Tatsuhiro Sakamoto cross provided the manager the opportunity to stick to Plan A.

From a defensive perspective, this was an encouraging performance from a Coventry City side that is still adapting to a new shape at the back and a whole host of new players. The team kept its tactical discipline to ensure that Leeds United could only advance to the edge of the penalty area and demonstrated a fighting spirit to put in some niggly challenges to break up the opposition’s rhythm. Having looked rather brittle at the back earlier in the campaign, the fact that the team faced such a big test of its defensive mettle and came out of it relatively comfortably is a step in the right direction.

Lack Of Attacking Outlet Nearly Costs City

Where Mark Robins’ game-plan threatened to fall apart was in the second half when Coventry City had less time on the ball, and thus fewer opportunities to catch their breath against an increasingly intense home attacking charge. The period between half-time and Leeds United’s opening goal looked the most desperate, with the Sky Blues struggling to get out of their own half until the pressure eventually became too much and they were undone by a combination of losing concentration in midfield, allowing a ball to be played between the lines, and a composed finish by Crysencio Summerville.

A key issue for Coventry City in this game, until the substitutes were introduced, was that the wingers were too far apart from Ellis Simms in attack. This meant that when counter-attacking opportunities arose, the centre-forward had to pause to bring others into play, giving the opposition time to get back and recover. In fact, the Sky Blues appeared most vulnerable during the first half when they were on the attack because they couldn’t move the ball forward quickly enough, thus making them prone to being caught on the counter-attack.

Posing a threat on the counter-attack is often the key in making a defensive game plan a successful one as it places an element of doubt in the opposition’s mind from flooding players forward. Coventry City’s lack of directness in attack in the first half encouraged Leeds United to commit players forward as the game wore on. The period leading up to the opening goal was almost all home pressure and that is what caused the concentration to buckle enough for Leeds to take advantage of.

The same thing nearly cost Coventry City the game late on when Leeds United flooded forward in desperate search for a winning goal. Once again, a lapse in concentration in midfield allowed Leeds to get clean through on goal, but the combination of determined defending from Bobby Thomas and a poor attempt at a finish from Dan James saw the home side waste what looked like a certain chance to win the game.

That Mark Robins needed to make changes to the side to manage fitness with the festive fixture list beginning to ramp up is a mitigating factor, but if Coventry City is to adopt such a defensive approach in future games this season, they are going to have to find a bigger threat on the break than they showed here. If it hadn’t been for a somewhat rogue decision from Bobby Thomas to linger forward after a surge from the back, the Sky Blues would have lost this game and had no complaints about having done so.

Getting The Subs Right, And Then Wrong

For a period of about ten minutes following Bobby Thomas’ equalizing goal, Coventry City threatened to snatch the game from Leeds United. Callum O’Hare and Haji Wright were immediately introduced from the bench, turning a 4-5-1 formation into a 4-2-3-1 with Wright and Milan van Ewijk putting Leeds United on the back foot with their pace in wide areas. Having lacked an attacking outlet for much of the game, the Sky Blues finally had it. Then, Mark Robins’ final two substitutions saw Kasey Palmer and Jamie Allen placed out wide, and the momentum was killed.

One of the key features of this recent run of form from Coventry City has been their penetration from wide positions. The win over Millwall that kicked it all off was the perfect demonstration of this, with Haji Wright repeatedly getting in behind the opposing defence from his left-sided berth, with Tatushiro Sakamoto twisting defenders on the right. There were a number of reasons why Mark Robins didn’t focus on this from the off in this game, but it was strange that he reverted to it later on and then backed out of it by introducing the less direct Palmer and Allen for the closing stages.

While that may well have been because Mark Robins was content to play out for a draw, Kasey Palmer and Jamie Allen, not being natural wide players, hampered the team from both an attacking and defensive standpoint. On the attacking side, losing the direct pace of Haji Wright and Milan van Ewijk on either flank meant Leeds United could push forward again without much fear of being caught on the break. On the defensive side, Palmer and Allen struggled to track runners around them in wide areas, with Palmer nearly getting himself sent off with a complete loss of his head in getting mixed up in a pushing match and then committing a needless foul a minute later.

Aside from a chance late on that fell to Kasey Palmer, it was all Leeds United in the closing stages of the game. As stoutly as Coventry City defended, that pressure ultimately led to a golden opportunity for Dan James in the 95th minute that would have won the game had the winger showed a touch more composure. For all the effort that the Sky Blues put in here, those late changes turned an opportunity to nick a famous win into a let-off that they didn’t lose.