Sideways Sammy

A point away at Leicester City has to go down as a positive, especially with the team digging in to keep just its second clean sheet of the campaign. The derbies continue with a home game against Birmingham City in what is sure to be a charge atmosphere, with Coventry City on the verge of needing a win after a series of draws in recent weeks.

Birmingham have been widely fancied as one of the promotion favourites this season and a win here would go a long way to asserting Coventry City’s place in the early reckoning. The Blues have started the campaign solidly and will look to adopt a similar approach to the Sky Blues of dominating possession, which could make for a very different kind of challenge than Coventry have faced thus far, especially at the CBS Arena. If a win can be backed up by a dominant performance, it would be hard to argue that Coventry aren’t one of the best teams in the division currently.

Expected Line-Up

An injury to Ephron Mason-Clark last week has served to immediately highlight the folly of allowing three attacking players to leave the club on loan on transfer deadline day with no incomings to offset them. Coventry City are down to five players covering the front four positions, with questions over two of those – Haji Wright and Jack Rudoni – who looked to be carrying knocks in the latter stages of the Leicester City game.

While the likelihood is that Frank Lampard will stick to the tried and trusted 4-2-3-1 set-up he has deployed for the majority of his time at Coventry City, a switch to a 3-5-2 may have to be a consideration, if not from the start here then as a way of managing the fitness of his attacking players or as the only way to change things up if it’s required. Brandon Thomas-Asante is likely to continue on the left-wing, with the only alternative right now being to play Wright down the left and bring the out-of-form Ellis Simms in at centre-forward.

It is hard to see changes elsewhere, as it’s quite clear that Frank Lampard will not make changes based around negating an opposition’s threat. Victor Torp could do with a more assertive performance in the middle of the park now that Josh Eccles is back fit and can add legs to Matt Grimes’ ability to control possession. Additionally, Jay Dasilva struggled against the challenge of Abdul Fatawu last week, which could lead Lampard to considering bringing Jake Bidwell in for some extra defensive sturdiness at left-back.

Last Time We Met

Eyes were clearly on an FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley the following week, as a desperate Birmingham City side ran all over a half-hearted Coventry City outfit back in April of 2024 to grasp a win they needed in a failed bid to stay in the Championship. After an early chance, Coventry fell asleep at the back to allow Keshi Anderson to race to the byline and see his effort go in after a heavy deflection off Bobby Thomas. It only got worse from there.

Ivan Sunjic swept an effort from the edge of the box after a corner-kick past the ghost of Brad Collins. Collins again failed to cover himself in glory as Jay Stansfield slipped an effort through his legs to wrap up what was a comfortable win for Birmingham City at St Andrews.

The Opposition

The Manager – Chris Davies

Highly-rated as a coach from his time working with Brendan Rodgers and Ange Postecoglou, Chris Davies stepped into his first managerial role at Birmingham City following their relegation to League One and built a record-winning promotion side last year. With further backing in the transfer market over the summer, there has been understandable excitement about Birmingham’s ability to ‘do an Ipswich’ in achieve back-to-back promotions from the third-tier to the top-tier, a solid start of ten points from six games shows there is substance to back up the hype.

Davies seems primarily concerned with controlling games through possession and pressing. While his teams don’t appear to be overly concerned with blowing opponents apart, 25 clean sheets in 52 games highlights just how suffocating Birmingham City can be under Chris Davies. Able to keep most of their games incredibly tight while having most of the ball, it is little wonder why Birmingham score so many late goals.

Who To Look Out For?

Birmingham City are all about controlling possession, with the ability of their central midfield duo, Paik Seung-ho and Tomoki Iwata to keep the ball cycling at the base of the midfield. Iwata tends to play as the deeper of the duo, with Paik stepping further forward to contribute around the penalty area but both are capable of interchanging roles and makes it especially hard to press Birmingham.

Additionally, Blues’ ability to build from defence is another key element of their play, with the giant Christoph Klarer having recently been moved back to right centre-back to make it harder to press them into errors, paired with former Sheffield United man, Jack Robinson, as the left-footer in the duo. On top of that, left-back, Alex Cochrane, tends to play narrow to further facilitate the build-up play, while Ryan Allsop in goal is supremely comfortable the ball at his feet.

Finding the right formula in attack has been Chris Davies’ biggest headache this season, with Birmingham City possessing a range of options but the balance hasn’t quite been found. Big summer signing, Kyogo Furuhashi, has struggled for confidence in front of goal despite his impressive movement to get in scoring positions, while finding the right place for record League One signing, Jay Stansfield, has been an issue, with the hard-working technical forward not necessarily suited to finding space against the packed defences Blues often face.

Demarai Gray has been a somewhat surprising hit after returning from a poor spell in Saudi Arabia and is someone who offers not just pace but intelligent use of the ball in attacking areas. Bright Osayi-Samuel’s overlapping runs from right-back have been another success story from Birmingham’s summer business. Blues can call upon some meaty target-men to batter teams down, with Marvin Ducksch a regular Bundesliga goalscorer who is built like a tank – the man who scored last summer for Werder Bremen in a pre-season friendly at the CBS – and is being slowly integrated into the side, while Scotland striker, Lyndon Dykes, is finally making an impact from the bench after a slow first year at St Andrews.

Where The Game Will Be Won Or Lost

With both teams desperate to control possession, it feels like this game could be decided by which manager sticks to their principles and which one decides to do something different to counter the opponent’s threat. For Frank Lampard, there may be a level of temptation to cede a level of control to his opposite number in order to target what is the clear weakness in Birmingham City’s ranks, their lack of pace in defence, and with Coventry City having kept a disciplined clean sheet against Leicester City last week, soaking up pressure feels less of a worry.

Brandon Thomas-Asante, Haji Wright and Milan van Ewijk look set to lead Coventry City’s counter-attacking threat, with the onus on Victor Torp and Jack Rudoni to spring them into favourable foot races with their passing ability. The trigger is likely to be trying to catch Christoph Klarer stepping forward into midfield from centre-back and then trying to target the slow left side of Birmingham’s defence on the break.

If Coventry City instead attempt to control possession in this game, the primary challenge will be navigating Birmingham City’s energetic press – which is an underrated element of their game. The worry about this match is Coventry coughing up a cheap goal from playing out from the back, with Birmingham adept enough on the ball and with enough physicality across the park to see out a one-goal lead pretty comfortably.