The good, the bad and the ugly as Coventry City’s squad management comes into question

After a long and rainy Wednesday night at Plymouth, Coventry City showed tenacity and resolve to steal a late point away from home.

Before the ball was ever kicked, the match was expected to be difficult because Argyle is no joke and has a strong home record. The Sky Blues also missed chances to take the lead, but they rallied twice to make sure they had something to show for their efforts when they left Home Park.

After some shoddy defending allowed the home team to take the lead through the excellent Morgan Whittaker, Ellis Simms equalized the score for City. Then, deep into six minutes of stoppage time, Bobby Thomas’ own goal was cancelled out by Liam Kitching with his second goal. Nothing makes a party more enjoyable than a late score that almost seemed like a victory and gave the supporters something to cheer about on their rather uncomfortable journey home. The following are some talking points from the draw (2–2).

Managing the squad

Following Sunday’s victory over Millwall, Mark Robins faced significant criticism for making so many changes to his squad. In actuality, though, the Sky Blues manager is doing his best to guide his team through a demanding schedule of games. Callum O’Hare chose to stay at home rather than travel the seven or eight hours to Devon since he was starting to feel fatigued.

Others, like Milan van Ewijk and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto when he entered the game in the second half, were obviously not at their best that evening. However, the team’s ability to rally for a late point after it appeared they had lost the match demonstrated true resiliency and made the 1,708 ardent supporters who traveled a great distance to watch the game worthwhile.

The good, the bad and the ugly

After the game, Robins expressed mixed feelings about his players’ performance. While he was frustrated with the way they defended, he was also happy with their attacking intent, even if they missed a lot of extremely good opportunities. He made note of how many were still very young and how important it was for him to get them back on the training field so he could review some fundamentals and get them playing the way he wants them to.

An example of this was Plymouth’s second goal, which led to the manager expressing his annoyance by stating: “That came from kicking out long from the back.” Pay attention and do your tasks. You should not throw it for a fight ball because they are more skilled at it. “How we defended, we just switched off,” the speaker continued, “but I don’t want to give them excuses.”

At the sharp end of the pitch, Matty Godden missed a couple of really good chances; the first a header that he sent wide from about four yards out, and the second when he was through on the left and denied by the goalkeeper who spread himself wide to cut out the angled shot. “I feel for him because he’s almost there,” said the manager, “but the angle of his run was that he was coming at it from the side (for the header). He was trying to get to it but was coming from an angle and it meant the ball just got away from him. And then in the second half he opened his body up for his shot and sort of lost his footing for a split second, which cost him the chance to score when you would normally expect him to stick that in the back of the net. Those were just two of the chances that he had and we had umpteen others where we just didn’t finish off amid some good goal keeping and last ditch defending.”

Simms backed by Robins

Ellis Simms has been another target of criticism from some supporters this season, but it was encouraging to see his perseverance and hard work rewarded with a goal—just his fifth for City thus far. He keeps working hard and giving it his best, and his manager, who is still confident in his abilities, is fully behind him.

“I thought Ellis’ goal was really well done,” he remarked. He occasionally receives criticism, but he will improve. All he needs to do is persevere and never give up. I was happy for the goalie because he made a nice save, but he continued and scored with his chest.