Sideways Sammy

Coventry City roared back from what felt like an unjust 1-0 deficit against M69 rivals, Leicester City, with a stirring late show to secure all three points at a raucous CBS Arena.

The Sky Blues had probably edged a first-half of few clear-cut chances at either end, playing with impressive energy to cut off Leicester City attacks and threaten on the break. Tatsuhiro Sakamoto had the team’s best chance of the opening period, forcing Leicester’s Mads Hermansen into a finger-tip save at the near post. However, it was the Foxes who ended up ahead at the break.

It was a debatable penalty call, to say the least, with Bobby Thomas punished for the faintest of follow-throughs on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall after getting comfortably first to a loose ball in the box. It was Dewsbury-Hall who coolly converted the spot-kick, but his side ended the half with ten-men, with Abdul Fatawu given what looked to be a fairly harsh red card for a lunging tackle on Jake Bidwell.

What should have been an advantage in the second-half took time to manifest itself, with Coventry City struggling to create much of note against a Leicester City team who sat back and largely abandoned any attacking intent. The introductions of Jay Dasilva, Jamie Allen, and Ellis Simms, seemed to spark the home side to life, with Simms and Dasilva directly involved in setting up Callum O’Hare’s equaliser.

The Sky Blues remained on the front foot in the closing stages of the game and were rewarded with a Milan van Ewijk finish after seizing on a loose ball in the second phase of a set-piece to put the home side ahead. Callum O’Hare then made it comfortable, lashing home an excellent volley after an initial Matt Godden effort looped up into the air.

Energy, Energy, Energy

This was a tigerish performance from Coventry City, with several players feeding off the energy that came from a packed out crowd in a derby game to find the capacity to cover ground, get in the faces of their opponents and cut off attacks by surging into interceptions. Against a Leicester City side that wanted to play a very slow and deliberate brand of possession football, the Sky Blues knocked them out of any kind of rhythm and they struggled to consistently get the ball into the final third.

Ben Sheaf was particularly integral in setting the tone of the performance for Coventry City, making a number of crucial interceptions in front of the defence early on to turn Leicester City attacks into opportunities for the Sky Blues to break. Josh Eccles alongside Sheaf also had his moments in creating the turnovers that were crucial to Coventry’s game-plan , with the front four ahead of them running some hard yards in shutting off Leicester’s passing lanes into midfield, while Milan van Ewijk’s covering pace at right-back allowed the team to push higher up the pitch than they otherwise would have been comfortable with.

What was most surprising about this game was just how much of the ball Coventry City had, even when it was 11 against 11. Leicester City are all about suffocating the game with possession, they average at 64.2%, dropping slightly to 60% away from home, their lack of the ball in this game was not through choice but the manner in which the Sky Blues shut them down across the pitch. Coventry pressed in an intelligent and disciplined manner, retreating into their shape when it was sensible to do so before spotting opportunities to either cut off attacks or start off some of their own.

Much of Coventry City’s best moments in this game came directly from quick turnovers, highlighting this team’s strength in counter-attacking situations. With the pace of Tatushiro Sakamoto and Milan van Ewijk on the right, the unpredictability of Kasey Palmer on the left, along with Callum O’Hare in the middle constantly making himself available for passes in the final third, the combinations seem to work best when opponents are on the backtrack and the Sky Blues can swam into the space that opens up. This is an exciting team to watch and one that has found a good balance between tactical discipline and all-out chaos.

Hitting The Brick Wall

Having done pretty much everything right in the first-half and ended up 1-0 down, the question was whether Coventry City could find a response against a strong Leicester City side in game management mode. Abdul Fatawu’s red card just before half-time certainly swung things in Coventry’s favour, with Leicester adopting a passive approach in sitting deep and applying little pressure on the ball, but the Sky Blues looked to be short on ideas as to how to make the breakthrough.

Much of Coventry City’s best play in this recent run has been in counter-attacking situations. There is plenty of pace in this team to suit that approach and it is probably also down to what is still a lack of familiarity that the Sky Blues have tended to struggle this season when handed longer periods of possession to attempt to break down a deep-lying opponents.

There looked to be two key issues for the Sky Blues in their efforts to break a determined Leicester City down in the second-half. The first was that their play was often too focused down one side at any one time. This meant that Leicester could focus on slowing Coventry’s attempts to work the ball into box down and stay set in their defensive shape. The other was a lack of players in the box capable of attacking the crosses that were inevitably the team’s best opportunities.

What this team seems to be missing at the moment is a deep-lying midfielder with a range of passing to be able to switch the play quickly and drag the opposition around the pitch. Ben Sheaf is the closest thing Coventry City have to that kind of player right now, but it was almost agonising at times in the second-half how he failed to get his head up and spot passes to either of the full-backs who had got into space out wide. The biggest threat from deep the Sky Blues had for much of the second-half came from either Bobby Thomas or Liam Kitching stepping into midfield from central defence, which disrupted Leicester’s defensive shape.

The other issue was where the absence of Haji Wright was felt, along with Ellis Simms being left on the bench. Matt Godden had one decent headed chance in this game, otherwise, he was pretty easy for Leicester City’s giant centre-backs, Wout Faes and Jannik Vestergaard, to mark from crosses. This meant that the team had to play very intricately around a set Leicester defence and hope they could make something out of very little room to work with.

Just when the team looked to be flagging, the introductions of Jay Dasilva, Jamie Allen and Ellis Simms, provided the burst of energy to speed the approach play up and begin to scramble Leicester City’s defensive shape. Still, O’Hare’s goal required some pretty intricate build-up, but the greater pace and urgency that the substitutes offered was enough to speed up the team’s attacking play and get into the box, rather than get stuck around it.

The second-half highlighted what this Coventry City side needs to work on the most over the remainder of the season. Teams are going to start to recognise that the Sky Blues are a far bigger threat on the counter-attack than with long spells of possession, being able to work the space quicker and more intently against a set defence could be the difference between the play-offs and missing out on them. The longer that this team sustains this form, the more often they will be faced with situations similar to the second-half of this game.

O’Hare’s Injury Has Made Him A Better Player

If there was any doubt as to whether Callum O’Hare could sustain the positive form he has showed since scoring a brace at the start of December against Birmingham City, his crucial contribution to a win over the dominant league leaders underlined that O’Hare is not just back, but he’s better than ever. In just 14 appearances this season, he has matched his best scoring output in a single campaign. For a player who had often done so much good apart from scoring, the goalscoring really is the most relevant aspect of his game to focus on.

Callum O’Hare is a different player to the manic, try to do everything at 100 miles per hour player he was before his injury. Whereas O’Hare’s greatest quality was the sheer chaos that he could cause by pressing opponents with tireless energy before looking to burst into key areas in the final third, he is now doing less and producing more. The misses and mishit passes often seemed to be an intrinsic part of O’Hare’s game, but his recent form has shown that he is much more than an Energizer Bunny of a footballer.

One of the key differences is that Callum O’Hare wins far fewer free-kicks than he used to. It often seemed like O’Hare would look to draw contact from opponents after running out of ideas of what to do with the ball, which was often. It surely must be the result of those two big injures that O’Hare isn’t looking to get into challenges and that has forced him to assess his options and make better decisions.

The finish for his first goal in this game really highlights the composure that Callum O’Hare seems to have discovered. A player who once seemed to hit and hope, and often end up shooting right at the goalkeeper, when in scoring situations took what was really a half-chance, pauses to set himself correctly, before picking his spot in the bottom corner. It was the finish of someone who knew what he was doing.

Away from the goals, what is most impressive about Callum O’Hare’s general play right now is his ability to constantly make himself available for passes in what is a very tight area in the central attacking midfield role. One of the key reasons why Coventry City were so threatening on the counter-attack for much of the first-half was that O’Hare was able to pick up the space off the back of Leicester City’s midfield and that meant that any time there was an opening on the break, whoever was on the ball had at least one option available to them as either a pass or a decoy for themselves to drive forward.

It feels especially cruel from a fan’s perspective that Callum O’Hare is playing his best football in a Coventry City shirt at a time when he is nearly out of contract. Having already been a player that any other Championship club would have loved to have on their side, adding that missing element of decisiveness to his game will only make his list of potential suitors greater.