Sideways Sammy

Coventry City beat Watford in comfortable fashion at the Coventry Building Society Arena to make it a third win in the space of a week.

A confident start, with Brandon Thomas-Asante spurning a couple of great early chances, eventually saw the Sky Blues take the lead. An extended passing sequence saw Jack Rudoni put in a delightful delivery that was prodded home by a late arriving Victor Torp in the penalty area.

Watford began to threaten after falling behind, forcing Oliver Dovin into a couple of great saves to keep Coventry City ahead. The away side looked to be in the ascendancy for much of the second-half but eventually ran out of steam. That allowed Victor Torp to secure the win with a sumptuous free-kick with fifteen minutes left.

A third clean sheet in a row was put paid to by an unfortunate deflection off Liam Kitching. It threatened to set up an unlikely comeback for Watford, but the Sky Blues were able to ride out the late rally from the Hornets with relative ease.

A Torp Performance

Even without the two goals, Victor Torp would have won man of the match in a superlative all-round display from the midfielder. Having looked for much of the past year that he was allowing games to pass him by, the Dane has really started to stamp his mark recently, recapturing that decisive early form he showed upon his arrival at the club last January.

It helps that Victor Torp is finally being played in his preferred position on the right of a midfield three. Prior to these past few games, he’s largely been asked to play in a deeper role as part of a two which massively stymies his ability to get forward and make an impact in the final third. While he’s also played as a number ten at times, that ability to drive forward as part of a midfield three and share playmaking responsibilities with Jack Rudoni allows him to be more involved and harder for opponents to pick up.

Victor Torp looks to be at his best operating in essentially an inside right position. From there, he’s able to keep moves ticking over while having the freedom to drift further out wide and get crosses in, or move inside to play through balls. In the opening ten minutes of this game, he played some great passes from that position to open up the Watford defence up that could have set Coventry City up for a more comfortable win with better finishing from his team-mates.

Instead, it was Victor Torp who had to do the finishing himself. The first came from swapping sides with Jack Rudoni and timing a late run into the penalty area to meet his team-mate’s inviting cross from the right. The goal really highlighted the benefit of playing Torp and Rudoni as part of a midfield three, rather than forcing one of them to play as a ten and the other deeper in a 4-2-3-1 set-up, as both now have the licence to push forward. It means opponents now have to deal with both at the same time, rather than with one easy to mark in a central advanced position and the other too deep to affect the game.

Enabled to have a greater involvement in games with the ball, Victor Torp also looks more willing to put the effort in without it. While he lacks the mobility and force in the challenge to truly be a great ball-winner, that effort to cover more ground is seeing his defensive numbers improve. No-one on the pitch in this game made more tackles than Torp, and while that also involved him making fouls, the effort to win the ball back is clearly there and not really something that could previously be described as one of his main qualities.

That there was little doubt that Victor Torp would score that free-kick later on highlights that the question mark against him has never been about talent. The doubt has been whether he has the willingness to impose himself on matches. This game showed what an imposing Victor Torp looks like, if he can sustain this, he is probably one of the best midfielders in the division.

The Confidence In Defence Is Growing

In the space of three games, Coventry City have gone from looking like a side that can concede at any opportunity to one that is increasingly confident about keeping clean sheets. Although they didn’t keep a third one in a row here, they were unlucky not to, showing a great willingness to put their bodies on the line to prevent the opposition having easy shots on goal.

After a confident start to proceedings, Coventry City had to deal with a Watford side that always looked dangerous on the counter-attack – particularly, through the almost untackleable Giorgi Chakvetadze. Crucially, the Sky Blues were able to ride out spells of Watford pressure, dropping into their defensive shape when they needed to, knowing that someone would eventually make an intervention to keep the opposition out.

Oliver Dovin was once again in great form, making a couple of excellent saves to keep Watford out. Knowing that there is a goalkeeper on hand who can be trusted to bail the team out as the last line of defence is clearly having an effect on the players in front of him, with Liam Kitching, Bobby Thomas and Joel Latibeaudiere, all making some great blocks during the game to stop opposition chances.

It was a Bobby Thomas tackle around the halfway line in the second-half that epitomised this increase in confidence at the back. Often during his 18 months at the club, Thomas has wanted to stamp attacks out like that but been caught in two minds between making the challenge and standing the opposing player up. Here, there was no doubt in his mind about committing to the tackle and it went a long way to killing off the momentum Watford had been building after the break.

While a great defence doesn’t rely upon their goalkeeper making big saves and the centre-backs making big blocks and tackles, these interventions highlight the increasing confidence Coventry City’s back-line is developing. Whereas before the Sky Blues have been passive and weak at the back, they are now looking more certain and forceful. What is quite a young back-line is starting to grow in stature, making it less certain that there needs to be a leader added to that area of the pitch.

Can This Run Continue?

Three wins in a row have come at a crucial time of the season for Coventry City. Instead of looking over their shoulders at the relegation zone, they are now just six points off the play-offs with plenty of time left to make up that gap. To have done so with three of the team’s best players out injured is especially impressive. With scope to add to the squad in the remainder of the transfer window, there are reasons to believe there is further improvement to come.

On the other hand, these are three wins that have come in games where Coventry City have created relatively little and relied upon their goalkeeper to make some big saves. This could easily have been a run where the Sky Blues picked up as a little as one point, instead of nine, had Brandon Thomas-Asante not scored from a snatched chance against Bristol City, Oliver Dovin not made that incredible save at Blackburn Rovers and Victor Torp not smashed in what proved to be a crucial free-kick in this game.

Football is almost always a game of tight margins. While that’s a reason not to fret over the ones in Coventry City’s favour this past week, there is clearly scope for improvement to limit their potential impact. There were positive signs here of the team starting to take confidence from recent results, with a really well-worked passing move setting up the opening goal, but that little was created after taking the lead left the final result prone to being affected by the kind of bad luck that saw Liam Kitching score what fortunately proved to be a consolation own goal for Watford.

Furthermore, the current situation with the squad is such that another injury or two could completely disrupt what looks to have been a good balance stumbled upon with this 3-5-2 shape. There is an argument that this run hasn’t come at a great time for Coventry City, in that it could fool the club into believing that additions to the squad in January aren’t as necessary as they seemed a couple of weeks ago.

If Coventry City continue to play the way they have been over the past three games, creating little after taking leads and letting opponents have dangerous shots on goal, this run will not last. The hope is that winning games breeds confidence and can allow this team to start to control matches in the manner Frank Lampard clearly wants to. The challenge for the head coach is to strive for that improvement, otherwise this run really will be a flash in the pan.