Sideways Sammy

All of the excitement and build-up for Coventry City’s return to the Premier League, only to be humbled within 60 minutes by the best team in the country. The main positive that can be taken from Friday night’s defeat to Arsenal is that it surely can only get easier from here.

A League Cup tie presents the opportunity to calm some of the narrative around the Sky Blues, but simultaneously threatens to let the negativity multiply should Coventry lose. There might be two divisions between Coventry City and Plymouth Argyle but the circumstances of this fixture could well make that gap significantly smaller.

Expected Line-Up

With an important home game against Hull City on Saturday, Frank Lampard will surely be looking to keep the best available XI as fit and fresh as possible for that one, rather than a relatively meaningless League Cup tie. Expect a weakened team but one that should still be more than good enough to advance.

In goal, Daniel Bentley arrived too late to make it onto the bench against Arsenal but this is the exact scenario he was signed for. Having featured for Wolverhampton Wanderers already in the league this season, there can be no question of fitness unless there is a sense that the club wants to reward Ben Wilson’s loyalty in some way with a start here.

At the back, it will likely be a wholesale changes too, with Joel Latibeaudiere and Liam Kitching coming into central defence, with Kaine Kesler-Hayden and Jake Bidwell in the full-back spots. It’s further forward where things will be more interesting.

With Jack Rudoni, Gustavo Hamer, Victor Torp and maybe even Ephron Mason-Clark looking for fitness, that could make for a very entertaining starting line-up, depending on if Frank Lampard might want to save one or two of those for Saturday afternoon.

The prospect of all four starting is an entertaining one, but with Mason-Clark’s fitness a doubt and there probably a need to play someone with defensive instincts, it may well be that Josh Eccles comes into the midfield and Gustavo Hamer or Jack Rudoni fills in out wide.

Up top, Sidiki Cherif was not even on the bench against Arsenal so may not be in contention to start here. It might be handy to give a first start to Taiwo Awoniyi but with his patchy fitness record, it may be smarter not to immediately expose him to three-games in eight days.

Last Time We Met

Coventry City were looking to hold onto a play-off spot when they travelled to a Plymouth Argyle side fighting for their lives to stay in the Championship back on Easter Monday the season before last. The Sky Blues were unable to match Argyle’s desire and intensity as they sloped off to a 3-1 defeat that put a top six place in doubt.

The powerful Mustapha Bundu gave Coventry’s defence the runaround as he muscled off his opponents and got in threatening areas. Opening the scoring and then assisting Ryan Hardie before half-time, a Haji Wright goal before the break did little to change the direction of momentum in the match.

Bundu wrapped up the three points for Argyle just after the hour-mark, which ultimately did little to improve their survival prospects, with results elsewhere going against them to put them on the verge of relegation to League One.

Key Questions

1 – How Seriously Will Plymouth Argyle Take This?

Argyle have got off to a slow start to the season, not helped by their star striker, Lorent Tolaj, being sold over the summer and a couple of injuries to key players, but named a strong line-up for their First Round tie against local rivals, Exeter City.

There’s probably not too much to read from that line-up, given that the First Round effectively functioned as the final pre-season game, happening the week before the league season started this year. Argyle are yet to win a league game after two tries, and may well feel like they this competition is an unnecessary distraction.

On the other hand, a victory against a Premier League team presents Plymouth Argyle boss, Tom Cleverley, a galvanising early season moment as he looks to rebuild the squad and launch a promotion bid. Playing at home against an opposing side likely to make a lot of changes presents an opportunity to win, and with limited scope to make big changes of their own, Argyle have more reason to go for the win here than not.

2 – Potential For A Sexy Midfield?

Frank Lampard could name a midfield made up of Gustavo Hamer, Victor Torp, and Jack Rudoni, with Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Ephron Mason-Clark out wide. Depending on Mason-Clark’s fitness, all five have a need to be handed minutes after missing out on starts over the past couple of weeks and it would help keep what might be closer to the first-choice midfield fresh for Saturday’s match against Hull City.

Just whether that potential midfield would work for a potentially tough away trip against a physical opposition is the question. While Gustavo Hamer can get stuck in, there isn’t a lot of physical presence to that midfield unit, threatening to be easy to catch on the counter if the ball is lost. However, there is some sense in that set-up too, with Hamer staying deep to spray passes, Torp pushing forward to the edge of the box, freeing Rudoni to make late runs into the penalty area.

In a low pressure outing, this feels like a good opportunity to test whether a midfield trio of Hamer, Torp and Rudoni could work. It could certainly be the kind of set-up Frank Lampard may want to utilise at some point this season to help chase games.

3 – How Much Will This Matter?

Given how negative some of the reactions were to losing away at the best team in the country on Friday night was, the worry is that losing here fuels the negativity and puts the team in a difficult mindset with less than a week of the season gone. However, the rational answer is that this campaign will go no better or worse if Coventry City fail to win this game. Plenty of good seasons have seen the Sky Blues exit the League Cup within the first two rounds.

Coventry may now be a Premier League side, but there isn’t such a huge gap between themselves and Plymouth Argyle. Travelling a long way on a Tuesday night adds to the difficulty of this occasion, meaning it wouldn’t be a particularly significant upset were the Sky Blues to lose.

Still, this is the kind of occasion where fans (and probably the players and coaching staff too) will want to demonstrate their top-flight quality by winning this comfortably. A win won’t change some of the negative aspects to the Arsenal defeat but it offers the chance of a reset and to head into a big game this coming Saturday having shown they are a capable team.