Coventry City fell down to a second consecutive defeat against a play-off rival as they were beaten 2-1 at The Hawthorns by West Bromwich Albion.
Before they could get going, the Sky Blues were a goal down when Mikey Johnston turned inside Milan van Ewijk on the home side’s left wing and curled an impressive effort past Ben Wilson. Coventry mustered a half-decent response, with Ellis Simms, Kasey Palmer and, most notably, Josh Eccles, having chances to level affairs before West Brom registered their second shot of the first-half, as Tom Fellows teased Jay Dasilva down the other wing to set up Grady Diangana for a tap-in.
Coventry City then laboured through the second-half with little sign of causing Alex Palmer in the West Bromwich Albion goal any danger, before Victor Torp picked out Kasey Palmer excellently in the penalty area and he drew a clumsy foul from Albion’s Cedric Kipre to allow Haji Wright to pull one back from the spot. However, the Sky Blues offered little quality in the final third for all their frantic effort in the remaining minutes to lose a second league game in a row at a key juncture in the campaign.
Why Has Mark Robins Gone With A Back Three?
Coventry City’s best run of form this campaign came when Mark Robins switched from a back three system for the first time for the best part of four seasons, he reverted to that defensive line-up here and the Sky Blues swiftly lost a key game in their play-off chase. It seems a simple case of cause and effect here, however, it is understandable why the manager made the choice and there was enough here to justify sticking with it going forward.
The most obvious reason why Mark Robins has opted for a back three is that the injuries to Ben Sheaf and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto have robbed him of key options in central midfield and out wide. Sakamoto’s injury is the biggest factor, as there simply isn’t another natural winger in the squad, with Haji Wright and Kasey Palmer having done good impressions in those positions in recent months but there is no-one to fill in for them should they get injured, suspended or need resting.
Another significant factor in the manager’s decision-making of late is that Joel Latibeaudiere has done a pretty poor job of filling in as a central midfielder. The idea behind playing a centre-back in central midfield is that they will be adept in their defensive duties, however, Latibeaudiere has often looked like he’s had no clue where he should be positioned off-the-ball to be able to contribute defensively. Dropping him into the back three allows one of Latibeaudiere’s key attributes of pace to be a factor in his defending once again, and that helped the team in their vain efforts to chase this game.
Where the change in defensive set-up can be blamed here is in the contribution of both wing-backs to the two West Bromwich Albion goals. For the first, Milan van Ewijk is beaten by Mikey Johnston, before the Celtic loanee smashed an excellent strike into the back of the net. For the second, Jay Dasilva is not aggressive enough in closing down Tom Fellows on the other wing, allowing the Baggies winger to drive to the byline and cut the ball back for Grady Diangana for a tap-in.
However, if Mark Robins had been told prior to the game that his defence would limit West Bromwich Albion to two shots in the first-half, and a total of seven over the 90 minutes, he would have taken that. In the second-half, the benefit of the defensive switch started to become apparent, with Coventry City pushing up but capable of limiting the Baggies to few, if any, chances of quality because they had an extra man, one with pace, in Joel Latibeaudiere, to cover. It was notable that the manager was content to keep the back three in situ as the game wore on, rather than bring on an extra midfielder or forward to attempt to chase matters, perhaps fearing that losing that balance at the back would do more harm than good.
While the situation of being two goals behind was a key factor in how the second-half played out, it also hinted towards a way forward for Coventry City. The defence showed that they can account for the rest of the team pushing up the pitch, and that should empower the midfield and attack to be more aggressive in pressing opponents and looking to dominate the ball. The test is whether the team can do that from the off, rather than after the game has passed them by.
Palmer & Simms’ Wastefulness Kills The Attack
The issue for Coventry City in this game was not the defence, but the attack. The Sky Blues had a total of 17 shots to West Bromwich Albion’s seven. However, they rarely tested Alex Palmer in the opposing goal because they made poor decisions in decent positions, with Kasey Palmer and Ellis Simms particularly wasteful on this occasion.
After starring against non-league opposition on Monday night, this was a reminder to the duo that things are tougher against fitter, more talented opponents that look to deny them time and space on the ball. For Ellis Simms, it was clearly not his night. From his first touch that bounced three metres off his foot, to his final one that ballooned over the cross-bar, Simms did not play like a man who has scored five goals in his last four games.
Kasey Palmer looked to have little control over his performance either. One moment, he could be receiving the ball on the turn under pressure to get attacks going, the next, he could be give possession away attempting a through ball to an imaginary team-mate. After 50 league appearances for the club, there is little sign of him getting better. While he won the penalty with a great turn into the penalty area, he was also guilty of squandering attacking momentum on multiple occasions with ludicrous decisions to attempt passes or shots that were never on.
Furthermore, the decision to take Callum O’Hare off for Haji Wright didn’t really pay off, despite the American scoring from the spot. Perhaps it was a case of keeping O’Hare under wraps for Tuesday night’s game against Rotherham United, but Wright was not effective alongside Simms in attack for a second game in a row, with the duo looking to have little understanding of how to dovetail off one another. The two key issues are that neither Simms nor Wright are adept at controlling the ball in tight areas to be able to lay it off to one another, nor do they make runs into the channels to stretch opponents.
Last season, Coventry City didn’t have to get much right going forward because they had two players, in Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres who made the improbable happen with little need for support. This time out, with players like Kasey Palmer and Ellis Simms, as well as Haji Wright, the team cannot rely on stand-out individual play to win points – although Callum O’Hare and Tatsuhiro Sakmoto have occasionally been able to provide that exact quality. It’s not that Palmer and Simms are bad players but they need to be in a structure to excel, rather than make it happen on their own.
Coventry City Might Have Been Unlucky Recently
After a second league defeat in a row, both against direct play-off rivals, the recriminations are out. Mark Robins has apparently lost the plot. Ben Wilson can’t save a thing. The defence is poor. The attack is hopeless. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else, it’s a natural part of reacting to a game immediately after it happened. However, there is a case to be had that Coventry City have been unlucky over these two matches.
The most obvious thing is that the opposition have scored the first shot of the game in both matches. While that might speak to the team not starting games aggressively enough, in this match in particular, that kind of shot doesn’t find the back of the net most of the time. It’s always hard chasing from losing positions, on average this season in the Championship, the team that scores first wins 70% of the time – only Millwall and Rotherham don’t win the majority of the time they take the lead.
From 1-0 down, Coventry City had decent chances to equalise, with the best being a well-worked corner-kick routine that came to Josh Eccles on the edge of the penalty area and he fired narrowly wide after appearing to have struck the ball well. While West Bromwich Albion weren’t exactly being put under the cosh, it was a pretty even contest with the Sky Blues probably the likelier team to score until the Baggies grabbed a second from their only other shot of the half.
While Coventry City could be accused of sloppy finishing and weak defending in this game, more often than not, they would have had a chance of taking at least a point after limiting a home side to just two shots in the first 45 minutes and seven overall. Goals are important details in football matches, but the lesson in this game in particular is not that the Sky Blues were awful and need to go back to the drawing board but have to tweak some details defensively and focus on their combinations going forward.
It is not a great time in the season to be losing games to direct play-off rivals, but there is still time left for Coventry City to work on those details and hit form. The run over December and January highlighted that this team has the quality to string together wins and they only have to look to last season to show that if they can stick around the area of the table they are currently in, it just takes one run of form to make the campaign memorable. The season is only over if this team wants it to be. March is way to early to be giving up.
Sideways Sammy 