Sideways Sammy

It looked for a long portion of last season that it wasn’t going to work out at Coventry City for Ellis Simms. Unable to impose himself on defenders and with a poor first touch, Simms couldn’t get himself into games, even worse, when chances fell his way, he snatched at them. Two goals in his first 25 competitive games for the club, the money spent on him as one of the chief Viktor Gyokeres replacements looked a waste. Then, Simms got a few lucky ones, a few well-taken ones and then he almost couldn’t stop scoring. A run of 15 goals in 14 games towards the end of last season – including, both FA Cup ties against Premier League opposition – showed Simms’ pedigree as a goalscorer and someone capable of firing Coventry into a promotion hunt this time around.

With confidence behind him, Ellis Simms started to demonstrate excellent instincts as a striker, taking shots on early, seizing on half-chances, constantly there in the penalty area waiting for and expecting the ball to come his way. Moreover, that difficult start to the season where Mark Robins had tried to get Simms working on his all-round game looked to have paid off, with the striker relishing starting to relish physical battles with centre-backs, using his presence to open up space for the likes of Haji Wright, Callum O’Hare and Milan van Ewijk to thrive in. While Simms’ first touch remains a little loose, his aptitude for holding the ball up and getting others into play has increased during his time with the club. Ellis Simms looks ready this year to step up as one of the leading strikers in the Championship.

The first few games of the campaign have been a little tough for Ellis Simms. Too much of the team’s play has been focused either out wide or through extended spells of possession, which has limited his involvement. Furthermore, the addition of extra attacking options has seen Simms routinely taken off around the hour-mark regardless of his performance level, which has to be incredibly frustrating, robbing him of both momentum and the ability to take advantage of tired defences. The worry is that if this trend of leaving him isolated and frustrated continues, the Ellis Simms of the start of last season returns and not the one that has proved over an extended spell last season just what he’s capable of with confidence and trust behind him. It’s an absolute must at the time of writing for Mark Robins to tweak things in favour of Ellis Simms.