Sideways Sammy

Another defeat at Preston North End did little to reverse the impression that Coventry City’s form is likely to improve any time soon. A trip to bottom of the table Queens Park Rangers is now a vital fixture for the Sky Blues and Mark Robins to prevent this slow start turning into a full-blown crisis.

Now is the time for this team to show some character to get out of the situation they’ve found themselves in. It is all about getting points on the board, by any means necessary. The next few games could well define an era at Coventry City, surely no-one wants to be involved in marking this as a negative one.

Expected Line-Up

Mark Robins switched to a 3-5-2 formation for the trip to Preston North End at the weekend and there were arguments for and against the change working or not. Given all the chopping and changing that has gone on with personnel in the starting line-up this season, sticking with something and giving it a chance to work feels more important than which individuals play and in what formation. Unless the manager is certain there is another line-up and formation available to him that will 100% work, it makes sense to give this new system at least one more try.

The defence looked fairly stable against Preston North End, so there feels little reason to mess about with the reasonable balance that having Joel Latibeaudiere acting as almost a sweeper between Bobby Thomas and Luis Binks looked to provide. In goal, Oliver Dovin made some good saves, albeit without commanding his area with any authority, but it would be ridiculous to consider changing anything there.

A lack of presence in midfield was one of the key issues last time out, but the only change there available to Mark Robins is to bring in Victor Torp, who offers less in that regard than anyone he’d be replacing in the side. That said, the Dane might be useful on the right of the midfield three to help bring Milan van Ewijk into play, after the right-back was almost a complete non-factor against Preston North End, forced to do almost all of the attacking work on his side of the pitch on his own against two, sometimes three, opponents. If this formation is to remain over the longer-term, finding a way to make better use of Van Ewijk feels crucial.

In attack, the pairing of Norman Bassette and Ellis Simms showed some promise, without quite clicking, at the weekend. With this being the middle game of a three-match week, Mark Robins may look to change things up in that area in what is pretty much the only area he can do so without changing the system entirely. In that case, Brandon Thomas-Asante and Haji Wright will be tasked with ploughing the furrow up front for the first sixty minutes before that inevitable change-up later on.

Last Time We Met

Queens Park Rangers were in a good place when they made the trip to the CBS Arena on the final day of last season, buoyed by an excellent run that had secured safety. Against a physically broken Coventry City outfit, QPR took the lead in the first-half when Ilias Chair fired from range past an unsighted Brad Collins. It was two and game over soon after when Morgan Fox managed to head home from a set-piece despite being surrounded by four Sky Blues defenders – it’s okay, lads, it’s probably someone else’s job to head the ball.

Coventry City toiled throughout the second-half to get back into the game, but were up against a debutant keeper in the opposing goal in inspired form. Jamie Allen’s late goal, capitalising on excellent work in the build-up from Haji Wright to head into an empty net, was too little, too late for a Sky Blues side that had nothing left to give.

The Opposition

The Manager- Marti Cifuentes

The Spaniard did an excellent job last season in revitalising a Queens Park Rangers side that looked to be short on the quality and depth to stay in the division. Backed reasonably well in the summer transfer market, this season just hasn’t been the same for Marti Cifuentes. Perhaps it has been that lack of a feeling of having anything to fight for, the Hoops have been a soft touch for most of the campaign, not necessarily bad but rarely doing enough to win games – a sensation Coventry City fans will be familiar with.

Marti Cifuentes has tried to introduce a little more flair to the way Queens Park Rangers play this season but they have become a team that has a lot of the ball with little idea of what to do with it – especially, at home. Having found success last year through quick transitions, that move to a more possession-oriented style has been something of an awkward one. Their one league win this season came from moving to a more direct approach and that may be what Cifuentes looks to introduce now that his team is bottom of the division.

Who To Look Out For?

On paper, Queens Park Rangers are quite an exciting side and certainly shouldn’t be underestimated. While they lost the key figure of Chris Willock over the summer and Ilias Chair has been missing for much of the campaign, the brought in one of the choice prospects in the EFL in Karamoko Dembele, along with Japanese winger, Koki Saito, and Danish creative midfielder, Nicolas Madsen, as fresh faces in a creative roster that had gone stale over the past couple of years.

Dembele, in particular, has started well at Loftus Road, looking to be delivering on the promise he showed very early in his career at Celtic as a nimble attacking-midfielder who is very tough to get off the ball. He has tended to operate on the right of the attack, with Marti Cifuentes recently moving to a back three and Dembele playing in tandem with another diminutive magician, in Ilias Chair, that makes for a pretty tasty creative hub if the rest of the team was working well.

Queens Park Rangers have the ability to be tight at the back behind those fleet-footed creative players, with Steve Cook organising the back-line and Jimmy Dunne and Jake Clarke-Salter either side of him both having flourished under the management of Marti Cifuentes. With Sam Field a tackle machine in defensive midfield, that theoretically frees up Nicolas Madsen beside him to push forward and join the attacking play. At wing-back, Harrison Ashby is an industrious player on the right and Kenneth Paal on the left has shown he can chip in with the odd goal.

The missing piece of this QPR team looks to be at centre-forward, where summer signing, Zan Celar, hasn’t been able to translate his form in the Swiss league to the Championship yet, while Michael Frey has only really had one convincing performance in a Hoops shirt since joining in January, in that solitary league win against Luton Town where he turned into prime Didier Drogba out of nowhere.

Where The Game Will Be Won Or Lost

This feels like a game between two sides in very similar places, having entered the season with big ambitions and are currently scratching their heads as to why they are near the bottom of the table, struggling for form, consistency or conviction in their performances. Furthermore, both managers have recently moved to a back three in an attempt to solve recent woes, and both lost the game in which the change was made. It feels like the clean sheet will be the number one priority for each side.

For Coventry City, the key challenge here is to keep Karamoko Dembele and Ilias Chair quiet in those attacking midfield positions. Based on the Preston North End game, that could be difficult considering how little of a defensive presence the midfield trio of Ben Sheaf, Josh Eccles and Jack Rudoni provided, which is where those three will have to step up, Sheaf, especially, if the Sky Blues can keep the clean sheet they are likely to be prioritising here.

With Queens Park Rangers possessing a pretty physical, but slow, back-line, there will be opportunities for Coventry City to cause them problems on the break. Getting the ball quickly into Haji Wright in space looks to be a key area where the Sky Blues can look to threaten, with his likely strike partner, Brandon Thomas-Asante providing further explosiveness up front to turn defence into attack. Jack Rudoni’s supporting runs from midfield will be helpful too, along with Milan van Ewijk being played into the game with space ahead of him to threaten from right wing-back.