Sideways Sammy

Back-to-back wins means Coventry City are now looking up the table, rather than over their shoulders. With 18 games and a good chunk of time left in the transfer window, there is an opportunity for the Sky Blues to quickly make their season more exciting than it looked set to be just a few weeks ago. The challenge for this game is to battle through any fatigue to keep the point ticking over.

The opposition are a Watford side in poor form, with key players injured and speculation that their manager may be set to replaced. This looks a great time to be playing the Hornets, but the unpredictable nature of football is such that Coventry cannot afford to count points from this fixture prematurely, especially given that performances over the past couple of games have arguably not been as good as results would suggest.

Expected Line-Up

Frank Lampard will surely be tempted to stick with the exact same team that won at Ewood Park on Tuesday night as he looks to keep the momentum from the past two games going. The only obstacle is any concerns over fitness levels, with this the third game in seven days.

The most notable area where things may be freshened up is at left wing-back, where Jay Dasilva may well be restored to the team to add energy and attacking intent from the position in a home game. It appears that Lampard may well view Dasilva as the best option in the position for matches at the CBS Arena, where the team is expected to have more of the ball, with Jake Bidwell the sturdier option for road trips.

The other position to watch out for is probably in the middle of the back three, where Luis Binks had to be taken off early against Blackburn Rovers after picking up a yellow card and off the back of two fairly unconvincing displays in the position that saw teams get through and around the centre-backs. Binks’ ability on the ball may well be favoured here in a home game where the team is likely to have the lion’s share of possession, but Bobby Thomas may well feel that he’s in a position to get back into the XI.

Elsewhere, Josh Eccles and Norman Bassette are the main fresh legs options if Frank Lampard feels he has to take at any fatigued legs over the past two games, however, it feels like it would be a reluctant move given that things seem to have clicked in midfield and attack recently.

Last Time We Met

It was a rare away game early in the season where Coventry City started brightly and with intent. The Sky Blues were well on top of the early stages at Vicarage Road back in September, taking the lead with Ellis Simms heading home a Jack Rudoni corner-kick delivery. There were opportunities to extend that advantage throughout the rest of the first-half but Coventry failed to take them, allowing a Giorgi Chakvetadze-inspired Watford a route back into the contest.

The Georgian did something that not many players do, out-pace Milan van Ewijk, as he set up Tom Dele-Bashiru for the equaliser. The game then became something of a slugging match, with both teams pushing for the winner yet unable to find it, in what was an entertaining early season contest.

The Opposition

The Manager – Tom Cleverley

The man who looked like he was being allowed the rare opportunity of quietly getting on with the job at Watford, speculation this week suggesting the club have a replacement lined up for Tom Cleverley highlights what a nightmare of a task it is for anyone to build the foundations for success at Vicarage Road. One of the favourites for relegation entering the campaign, Cleverley had got Watford playing entertaining, attacking football that looked a platform for a top six bid.

Form may have tailed off recently for Watford, but it should be made clear that Tom Cleverley isn’t operating with a squad built to attain a play-off finish. The manager had done a great job of building a coherent identity from a hodge-podge of a team at Vicarage Road made up of various random bodies brought in by the club’s ownership. The quality of Watford’s squad is very uneven, with one or two outstanding players alongside others either too old or too inexperienced for Championship football.

Who To Look Out For?

On talent alone, Watford may have the Championship’s best player, in Giorgi Chakvetadze. While a return of two goals and five assists this season doesn’t look particularly stand-out, the Georgian’s ability to commit defenders and then breeze past them with his dribbling ability means that the Hornets always have a means with which to open games up. He is someone who is simply impossible to stop when he gets going and means that leads against Watford never feel safe.

Joining Chakvetadze in the highly-skilled stakes are the more inexperienced duo of Kwadwo Baah and Rocco Vata. Baah had looked to have lost his way a little after shining at Rochdale three or four years ago but has returned from a loan last year at Burton Albion as someone capable of impacting Championship games as another mazy dribbler who beats players with ease, someone with real pace – although he’s set to miss this game through injury, along with another dangerous dribbler, in wing-back, Festy Ebosele. Vata, meanwhile, signed from Celtic over the summer and is starting to impact games with his control in tight areas and shooting ability, another who can produce something from nothing for the Hornets.

With so much skill and explosiveness in attacking midfield positions, the job of the rest of the team is to keep things tight. Watford have largely operated with a back three and a physical midfield pairing to provide that platform for the rest of the team, with Mattie Pollock being a revelation this season with his physicality and mobility in the wide centre-back position, and Moussa Sissoko remaining an imposing presence in central midfield despite being 35 years old.

Where The Game Will Be Won Or Lost

Watford being without Festy Ebosele and Kwadwo Baah, plus Giorgi Chakvetadze a possible doubt to be a starter, makes them significantly less threatening than they would be otherwise, on top of their pretty mediocre away form. However, this is unlikely to be the walkover that may be anticipated, with the Hornets an energetic side who retain a couple skill players who can produce individual moments among the chaos they’ll look to cause to win the game.

Watford like to make games end-to-end, allowing the likes of Chakvetadze and Rocco Vata to benefit from the havoc and get space in dangerous positions. They are likely to be happy to cede some of the possession to Coventry City as a way to set themselves up on the counter. This could be a real test of the midfield’s ability to impose themselves off the ball, otherwise they risk leaving the back three exposed to skilful ball-carriers who’ll relish the opportunity to run at them directly.

If Coventry City can assert a level of control on this game, they have the opportunity to take on a pretty leaky back-line. Watford can leave themselves exposed in wide areas, which could be a chance for the Sky Blues’ wing-backs to influence the game, especially if Jack Rudoni and Victor Torp can float out to the flanks to help create overloads. That should help provide service for Ellis Simms and Brandon Thomas-Asante to cause problems for the Hornets in the opposing penalty area.