Sideways Sammy

Coventry City recovered from a mid-week defeat at Derby County in style as they smashed Sunderland 3-0 at the CBS Arena with Haji Wright scoring a hat-trick.

The Sky Blues had just about edged the opening exchanges and were ahead when Haji Wright found space on the edge of the area to fire a low effort past Anthony Patterson in the Sunderland goal. Before the Black Cats had time to settle down, Wright was on the spot to make it two, after he had drawn a foul from Chris Mepham inside the penalty area.

The rest of the game became something of a procession for Coventry City as they saw out the win with ease. With Sunderland offering little resistance, the Sky Blues should have been three up long before Wright was sent through on goal once again by Victor Torp, chipping Patterson to put a well-deserved final gloss on the win.

Allen Proves The Missing Midfield Ingredient

The right balance in midfield has been a key concern of the Frank Lampard era thus far. The addition of Matt Grimes had been intended to provide the team with the control to dominate games but a lack of aggression around him has made it hard for him to exert his influence over a 90-minute performance. Here, Jamie Allen came into the side and immediately improved the dynamic in the centre of the park, allowing Grimes and Coventry City to completely run the show.

It cannot be understated just how good Jamie Allen was in this game. From very early on it was clear he was giving the team that missing element of aggression that had been missing in midfield, snapping into challenges and breaking up Sunderland attacks with interceptions, but also making himself constantly available as an option to team-mates on the ball and picking his passes well. It was close to a complete performance in midfield that unlocked extra levels from the players around him.

For both of Haji Wright’s goals in open play in this game, it is Jamie Allen that starts the move. Either by winning the ball back, as he did for the first, or manoeuvring the ball in a tight area to open up space in midfield, Allen’s energy and decision-making was spot-on throughout the 90 minutes. Whereas in recent games Coventry City had been ponderous in possession and easy to play through without it, Allen provided the team with intent and energy to be able to dominate the ball and look dangerous with it.

It was no coincidence that Matt Grimes put in his most influential display in a Coventry City shirt with Jamie Allen’s tireless energy alongside him. Allen is undoubtedly playing his best football for the club since the appointment of Frank Lampard, looking the energetic, composed presence in midfield he had only occasionally been before. It is surprising that it’s taken this long for the manager to figure out that Grimes and Allen can dovetail so effectively at the base of midfield but the hope is that discovering that combination now could be what powers this team into the top six.

Freewheeling Wright Provides Variety Up Front

When Haji Wright was announced as part of the starting line-up, and as the team’s lone striker, not many of a Sky Blue persuasion would have expected the end result to be anything like it proved to be. It wasn’t just that the American was off the back of what looked a tired 90 minutes at Derby County in mid-week but that he’d rarely been effective during his time at the club when played through the middle. Just how such a performance was possible is worth delving into deeper.

Haji Wright may have been nominally the team’s centre-forward, but he was afforded the licence to either drop slightly off the opposing centre-backs or float into wide areas. There were two reasons such an approach from Wright at centre-forward proved so effective here, the first was the team’s dominance of possession and the second was the ability of Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Ephron Mason-Clark and, to a lesser extent, Victor Torp to push forward into the areas up front the American was leaving vacant.

It was Coventry City’s control of the ball in this game that Haji Wright wasn’t drawn into the energy-sapping chasing of passes into channels and physical battles with centre-backs that he struggled with at Derby County earlier in the week. Although Wright has a level of physicality to his game, he is not someone who thrives when forced into constant duels with opponents, instead preferring to rely on his explosiveness to isolate defenders and open up space. Wright often dropped deep or out wide to seek space, before picking his moments to receive possession and take on a Sunderland defence who could do little to mark him.

Ephron Mason-Clark played a really important role in this game in making Haji Wright’s floatiness up front so effective. In what was otherwise a quiet display from the winger, whenever Wright dropped off or pulled out wide, he took up the spaces that were left behind. It led to one moment in the second-half where Mason-Clark was able to play Wright in behind on the left wing when the former had spotted the chance to move into a central position. More generally, Mason-Clark’s movement meant there was someone always occupying the Sunderland centre-backs, even when Wright when seeking space away from them.

Notably, this was the least reliant on crosses Coventry City have been for creating chances during Frank Lampard’s reign. Haji Wright’s ability to run in behind added a different element to the team’s attacking play that made them more direct and threatening going forward. That such a brilliant performance from Wright came off the back of an underwhelming one at Derby County in mid-week highlights that he may not always be the best option for the type of opponent Coventry are up against, but he added some much-needed variety to the Sky Blues’ attacking play here.

The Signature Performance

After a series of underwhelming displays that eventually saw an excellent recent run come to an end, Coventry City and Frank Lampard were in need of a big performance that demonstrated just what they could be capable of at their best. Here, they most certainly produced it, resolving several concerns that had been bubbling away under the surface.

As discussed earlier in this post, Jamie Allen providing the missing element of balance in midfield that enabled the team to control a game over 90 minutes they hadn’t previously been able to. Additionally, the variety and unpredictability of Haji Wright up front made the Sky Blues significantly more difficult for Sunderland to contain than previous opponents had been finding. On top of that, the defence played with real authority and composure, buoyed by the dynamism further in front of them.

Coventry City looked really up for the fight here, embodied by the tireless Jamie Allen in midfield but backed up by Bobby Thomas dominating at central defence, Jay Dasilva putting in a snappy, combative display at left-back. The willingness to fight for every little moment was summed up by how the team back up Tatsuhiro Sakamoto in a series of tussles with Sunderland in the second-half, the opposition attempting to fight their way back into the game through their own aggression but cowed by the home side’s response to it.

It was notable also that the opposition were unable to get in behind Coventry City’s back-line as easily as had been the case in several recent games. The greater aggression in midfield went a long way towards preventing those balls being played in behind as easily. While Sunderland were able to create a handful of chances via that means, the combination of Oliver Dovin coming off his line and Milan van Ewijk sweeping up in behind.

The caveat is that Sunderland clearly had much less motivation to win this game than Coventry City did, moored in a comfy no-man’s land between sixth and the automatic promotion places. They didn’t look to have come with a specific game-plan of targeting the Sky Blues’ weakness of that high line, instead looking to have a vague idea of keeping the ball that Coventry were able to disrupt with their energy in the middle.

Nonetheless, this is a timely performance that should prove to this set of players that they can rattle and defeat on of the best teams at this level when they are at their best. Heading into back-to-back games against two of the three automatic promotion contenders before a crucial final month to hold onto a top six place, Coventry have shown they deserve to be in their current position.

If this level of performance can be maintained over the remainder of the campaign, the Sky Blues would not only be able to secure a finish in the play-offs but feel they have every chance of doing something with the opportunity that would afford them.