Sideways Sammy

Coventry City fell to a 2-1 home defeat to Ipswich Town, leaving their opponents on the verge of securing Premier League football.

The Sky Blues were behind early, when Wes Burns got in behind the home back-line and cut the ball back to a completely unmarked Kieffer Moore to finish with confidence. From then on, it was mostly Coventry possession, which led to Ben Sheaf nearly equalising with a long-range effort and Haji Wright drawing an excellent close-range save out of Vaclav Hladky to preserve Ipswich’s lead heading into the break.

It was Wright who levelled the scores just after the hour-mark, released in the penalty area by Kasey Palmer to finish with aplomb past Hladky. Coventry City proceeded to hand all the momentum back to Ipswich with a sloppy five-minute spell following the equaliser, seeing Moore go clean through on goal to draw a good save from Brad Collins, eventually leading to a free-kick that bounced around the home penalty area that saw Ipswich’s Cameron Burgess react first to stab home the winning effort.

The Sky Blues plugged away to salvage a point, with the young home debutant, Aidan Dausch, flicking a delightful effort agonisingly wide of the Ipswich Town goal to nearly make a name for himself. Instead, Ipswich were able to wind down the clock and hold onto a crucial three points in their promotion bid.

A Creditable Performance

Starting with the positives, this performance was a marked improvement from Coventry City following a meek display at Blackburn Rovers at the weekend. While they again started a home game slowly and fell behind, the Sky Blues were able to dominate possession and create some good chances throughout the match, which could have made for a different result on another occasion.

The decision to play Josh Eccles on the right wing seemed a defensive move by Mark Robins in an attempt to keep Ipswich Town’s key danger man, Leif Davis, at left-back closely marked. While that was largely the case, Eccles was one of the team’s key attacking threats throughout the game through his combination play with Milan van Ewijk on the right side of the pitch and his energy with and without the ball.

Energy was probably the most notable aspect of this performance from the whole team. Having looked to be running on fumes in recent outings, they matched an Ipswich Town side desperately gunning for promotion step for step. Perhaps this was by virtue of the fact that Coventry City had to chase the game for much of the 90 minutes, with Ipswich happy to let them have possession, but the players put in some hard yards and were very close to being rewarded.

While there were question marks over the team’s creative play for much of this game, they created enough to take at least a point here that they would have deserved. From Ben Sheaf narrowly shooting over from range early in the first-half, Haji Wright being denied by an excellent save later on, to Josh Eccles narrowly missing a good second-half effort and Aidan Dausch coming a matter of centimetres from a famous contribution on his home debut with an audacious flick in stoppage time, Ipswich Town were made to sweat over a three points that nearly secured Premier League football for them.

Of course, any positives have to be caveated by the fact that both the final result and the meek manner in which the two goals were conceded. However, this was a much better showing than had been expected given Coventry City’s fatigue levels and lack of anything left to achieve this campaign.

Sterile Possession

With 62% of the ball and some extended spells of possession throughout the 90 minutes, Coventry City could have done more to turn the screw on Ipswich Town than they ultimately produced. In contrast to how quickly Ipswich were able to attack the space behind Jay Dasilva to produce a pull-back for their opening goal, the Sky Blues lacked purpose on the ball for much of the game, making themselves a little too easy for their opponents to defend against.

Coventry City struggled in particular to switch the play quickly and stretch Ipswich Town’s back-line as they looked to sit in when the home side were on the ball. The struggles began at centre-back, via the combination of Bobby Thomas, who didn’t back himself to make big passes, Joel Latibeaudiere, who constantly slowed play down to move the ball to his right foot in the left-sided position. With Liam Kelly just in front of that back line also unable to get his head up and move the ball with purpose, there was no creative hub from deep.

The one player who most would agree has the ability to be that deep-lying playmaker, Ben Sheaf, either didn’t feel he was capable of or was instructed not to play that role. Sheaf was the player others were turning to keep attacks going, but he mostly seemed to focus on carrying the ball forward and playing short passes that did little to open the play up. He very rarely got his head up to spot team-mates in space on the other side and that left Coventry City needing to be very intricate to work chances in open play.

When Coventry City looked to be a little more ambitious on the ball, it often demonstrated why most were looking to take the safe option. There was one attempted switch of play from Jay Dasilva in the second-half that flew over Milan van Ewijk’s head. On other occasions, possession was given away in dangerous areas when the team looked to play those bigger, ambitious passes.

It was only when Josh Eccles moved into central midfield that anyone in Sky Blue spotted opportunities to spread the play and get Ipswich Town on the turn. While not all those bigger passes from Eccles came off, it embodied the desire in his performance that he was willing to take those risks.

It has been a theme of this season that the more of the ball this team has, the less likely they are to win and this game highlighted just why that is the case. Having either a centre-back or deep-lying midfielder who can get their head up and switch the play quickly would go a long way to addressing that issue, making Coventry City better able to stretch opponents looking to sit in against them.

The Defence Crumbles Again

Any hope of building on a clean sheet at Blackburn Rovers at the weekend lasted for as long as eight minutes in this game, when Coventry City again fell behind at home to pretty much the first chance the opposition created. Even worse, as soon as the team managed to get itself level in the second-half, the defence committed a slew of mistakes leading to a clear-cut chance for Kieffer Moore in the build-up to Ipswich Town’s eventual winner.

Whether it can be considered unlucky at this stage that this Coventry City side tends to concede from the opposition’s early chances at home at this stage of the season feels hard to argue. It was too easy for Ipswich Town to attack the space in behind Jay Dasilva, who continues to struggle to get his positioning right at left-back to account for his lack of height, which sucked the entire back four towards the goal-line to prevent the cut-back. That no-one was tracking Ipswich’s six foot six striker, Kieffer Moore, who had checked his run to find himself in an ocean of space in the penalty area highlights how poorly switched-on this back-line can be early in games.

While that first goal could be argued was a good piece of play from the opposition, the period leading to their second looked a case of the back-line losing their heads completely when put under the slightest amount of pressure. A two-minute spell of dithering, rotten decision-making and zero assertiveness made it easy for Ipswich to score a goal that put them on the verge of Premier League football.

It began when Bobby Thomas charged out of defence to intercept a pass that he was second-favourite for, leaving space for Kieffer Moore, who was played onside by Milan van Ewijk, to run in behind Joel Latibeaudiere and get clean through on goal, from which he should have scored. Latibeaudiere is unable to fully clear the ball, allowing Ipswich to circulate possession out wide and buy a cheap free-kick when Leif Davis fell on the ball with Kasey Palmer in his general vicinity.

The set-piece itself fails to connect with an Ipswich Town player, but Joel Latibeaudiere fails to take charge in the box, allowing it to fall to the feet of an opposing player, with Latibeaudiere nearly fouling him for a penalty as he scrambles to recover. It is then a 50/50 battle between Ben Sheaf and Cameron Burgess for the ball, with Sheaf losing out to allow Ipswich to force the goal home.

It was a period of play in which there were errors all across the back-line, with Ipswich Town having to do little to build pressure and score. It was utterly self-inflicted and highlighted the complete lack of composure and assertiveness this Coventry City side has in defence. Perhaps all it will take is a full pre-season to work as a unit, perhaps it will take a complete change of personnel. This game demonstrated why this current defensive set-up will not carry the Sky Blues to where they are aiming to be.