Sideways Sammy

Coventry City ground out a 0-0 draw with Blackburn Rovers to end a three-game losing streak in the league but ending their faint hopes of making a late surge into the top six.

The Sky Blues had very little to offer from an attacking perspective for much of the 90 minutes. Their best chance came when Kasey Palmer dummied a pass from Callum O’Hare to send Haji Wright clean through on goal, but the American ended up shooting comfortable into the arms of Blackburn’s goalkeeper, Aynsley Pears. That was after Sammie Szmodics missed a glorious early chance for the hosts and preceded a pretty much one-way flow of traffic.

With Blackburn Rovers well on top, a clumsy challenge from Liam Kitching on Sam Gallagher, when sent clean through by a surging Kyle McFadzean run, really put the pressure on a tired and beleaguered Coventry City outfit. However, a combination of some important Brad Collins saves and wayward Rovers finishing meant it ended 0-0, a result that neither team really wanted.

A Rare Clean Sheet

Having conceded three goals in each of the last three games, to keep a first clean sheet in ten games was the main positive to come from this match for Coventry City. The process that it took to get there, less so.

Allowing Blackburn Rovers 30 shots, racking up a rough Expected Goals figure of around 1.7, including Sammie Szmodics missing an early open goal from a couple of metres out, wasn’t exactly from the vintage Italian school of defending. Coventry City needed Brad Collins in excellent form in goal to keep out a Rovers side that threw everything at a lackadaisical Sky Blues to ensure the clean sheet, while Bobby Thomas also made several crucial interventions to snuff out dangerous opposition attacks.

In the first-half, Blackburn Rovers were able to create chances from two key situations. The first was in pouncing on Coventry City’s sloppiness in possession when they had pushed players forward. With Milan van Ewijk and Jay Dasilva looking to push on from full-back and an attacking front four of Haji Wright, Kasey Palmer, Callum O’Hare and Ellis Simms, the Sky Blues constantly struggled to sustain possession long enough to get them into the game. When they had decent spells, they were constantly let down by sloppy passes and with so many players pushed forward, it allowed Blackburn to quickly get on the attack and leave the defence scrambled. The other situation was from set-pieces.

In the second-half, Coventry City dropped deeper and it became close to an onslaught from Blackburn Rovers. The issue here was that the front four was low on energy and struggled to hold up the ball to relieve pressure on the defence. Mark Robins would have dearly loved to have been able to inject the energy of a Fabio Tavares, Tatsuhiro Sakamoto or any fresh, fit attack-minded player, but had Matt Godden the only available senior forward on the bench, a striker unsuited to making things happen when the team has little of the ball. The debut handed to youngster, Aidan Dausch, reflected just how desperate the manager was for fresh attacking legs.

Going down to ten men made the disparity in energy between the two teams even more stark. Mark Robins opted to leave two strikers on the pitch, which meant that Blackburn constantly had a free option on the ball in wide areas to look to stretch Coventry City’s back-line or pick out crosses into the box. Those latter stages were when Bobby Thomas’ physical presence at the back really told, allowing the Sky Blues to feel relatively comfortable dropping into their penalty area, while Brad Collins was on hand to not only make some key saves but claim crosses as that final line of safety.

If there is anything to come from what felt like the first dead rubber of the season for Coventry City, it could well be in developing some confidence in being able to sit in and repel an opponent. While they were fortunate here that Blackburn Rovers didn’t take their chances, the aforementioned Bobby Thomas and Brad Collins should be able to look to their performances here to demonstrate that they can be key protagonists in a defensive effort. Keeping more clean sheets will surely be a key target next year.

Kitching Continues To Struggle

In a game that he wouldn’t have started had Luis Binks been fit, to get sent off and put further strain on his exhausted team-mates was another backwards step for Liam Kitching. The big summer signing has been in a poor vein of form, stretching back arguably to that first red card he picked up back on Boxing Day against Sheffield Wednesday. The clumsy challenge to fell Sam Gallagher, underlined the beleaguered headspace that the former Barnsley man looks to be in.

Liam Kitching reacted as if the red card was harsh, perhaps feeling that either Sam Gallagher went down pretty softly, or that Bobby Thomas was covering to prevent it being a last man foul, however, the challenge isn’t exactly out of habit for the centre-back. It was a similar challenge a few months ago that saw him sent-off at a key juncture in an important game against Norwich City, with the centre-back’s desire to commit to challenges when isolated against opposing attackers not paying off for him right now.

It is an approach that relies heavily on confidence to get the timing and force in the challenge right, something that Liam Kitching looks bereft of right now. The centre-back has looked in need of a spell out of the side since around a month ago, but Mark Robins only made the move to take him out of the firing line in the latter stages of last week’s FA Cup tie with Manchester United. To have been so swiftly back in a starting position may not have helped Kitching, but he now heads into the summer with his starting position up for debate.

It looks an important next few months for Liam Kitching as he looks to rebuild his confidence ahead of the new campaign. There have been signs of why the club were so keen to bring him in over the course of this season, some good runs to carry the ball out of defence, some good covering challenges to sweep up for Bobby Thomas, but it hasn’t been on a consistent enough basis to project confidence in him being a starting player.

Time To Focus On Next Season

Three games, including extra-time, over the course of six days has sapped all the energy out of this team at a key juncture of the campaign, with a slew of injuries picked up making matters worse. This 0-0 draw confirmed what had looked apparent after Wednesday night, Coventry City have nothing left to play for this season. The lethargic performance here underlined just how little these players had left in the tank.

There are two games still to play over the next week and Mark Robins is left with the task of picking a team from a dwindling set of options in an attempt to end what could have been a memorable campaign ending with a winless whimper. Just how much difference picking up points in an attempt to finish seventh, rather than twelfth, will have on next year is debatable. The bigger task is honing in on what hasn’t quite gone right this year that can be improved upon next time out.

While this isn’t quite the time for a full dissection of the campaign, there were some areas that were immediately apparent in this game. The first of which is the lack of squad depth, the result of this team being just two transfer windows into a longer-term rebuilding project. As mentioned earlier, Mark Robins had virtually no options to freshen things up to reverse the momentum of this game around. The good news is that Ephron Mason-Clark’s summer arrival, along with Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Fabio Tavares possibly returning to fitness by the start of the new campaign, goes a long way to addressing that issue, but there is more recruitment required.

The other area apparent in this game is trying to find the right balance between attacking intent, defensive resilience and the ability to control possession. In the first-half of this game, Coventry City had attacking intent but neither defensive resilience nor control of possession and were fortunate not to concede. In the second-half, the Sky Blues had defensive resilience but with no attacking intent nor control of possession. The balance has rarely felt right this season, reflecting the sudden change of system mid-way through the campaign, without the time required to build the familiarity in that new shape. Hopefully, pre-season will provide the players and coaching staff the time to find that balance.

Perhaps being able to get something of a head-start on preparations for next season will ultimately be the two steps forward after this backward one that will take the club where it’s hoping to be over the long-term. It’s never nice for a season to fizzle out, the work to avoid the next one doing so begins now.