Coventry City are going to get promoted this season. They currently set nine points ahead of third place Millwall and it’s just a case of what week it is that they finally get over the line. Back in January it looked like they were going to have the mother of all wobbles and throw it all away, when they lost four games out of five, but since February started, they have won six league games in a row to pull away from any chasers and sit very comfortably indeed at the top of the league, where they have been more or less all season.

Frank Lampard came to Coventry with a reputation to rebuild after not too clever spells at Everton and Chelsea and to be fair to him, he has done so, with this season exceeding all expectations from the start of the season. It hasn’t all been plain sailing however, and he was a colossal dickhead at St Mary’s earlier on in the season when his goading of the Northam End resulted in about twenty players scuffling on the pitch, all 20 armed with handbags. The dangerous nature of these handbag weapons resulted in the EFL flexing their muscles and handing out a £30,000 fine to Coventry and stating that ‘they started it’ and £22,500 pounds to Saints. Lampard of course was born into a football family and has been involved in the game as a professional since he was about 16, so he knows what you can and can’t do with regards to gesturing at fans. I’m pretty sure that enough time has passed it that first game for any of that to be an issue today. The bottom line is the Coventry have won their last six games and Saints are unbeaten in eleven. Something’s gotta go.

When I look at Coventry‘s team, the defence doesn’t look great on paper and their defence is certainly the area of the team that we have to get at because their attack has scored a ridiculous amount of goals this season with them about 15 goals ahead of everyone else. Their main striker is Haji Wright, the American International, who sometimes looks like a world beater and other times looks like he’s never played football in his life. Hopefully we get the latter this afternoon. They have also had decent goal contributions from Ellis Simms, Brandon Thomas Asante and Ephraim Mason-Clark. There is a big role to play for our midfield today because Victor Torp and Matt Grimes will dominate a game if you allow them to.

First and foremost, Saints have got to make sure they turn up today. If we go into this game as half arsed as we went into the West Brom game then it could get really ugly. The hope is that the better opposition will shake away some of the tiredness that we might have, and we can put on a performance more in line with what we put in at Fulham. I expect both Casper Jander and Cyle Larin to come into the team in place of Charles and Stewart and the big question of course is who will take the place of Leo Scienza on the left wing. It really has to be Sam Edozie you would have thought.

Having missed the opportunity to significantly close the gap on 6th placed Wrexham on Wednesday, we had to watch them win on Friday at home to Swansea, so now the gap between them and ourselves in seventh, is six points. Lose today and that’s going to look like quite a big gap with just the nine games to go.

Team news and this is weird. Unsurprisingly there is no Scienza and there’s also no Edozie or Fellows, so on the face of it, there’s no pace in the side, especially in the attack. There’s an extra central midfielder in there as well with Downes and Jander being joined by Cam Bragg, so that means Matsuki and Azaz are presumably, the ones closes to Larin. I think it’s safe to assume that we are not going to be hitting them with quick breaks. Ross Stewart is not on the bench, so maybe the “it was planned for Ross and Cyle to play 45 minutes each on Thursday…. was bullshit.

Right from the start of the game, as was obvious from the team sheet, Saints are playing a little bit differently to usual with Cam Bragg stationed in front of the back four and four midfielders in front of him, with Cyle on his own up front. Azaz is left, Matsuki right, with Downs and Jander pushed onto the Coventry midfielders. You can see how it’s supposed to work straight away, when Coventry play into midfield, we press high and win it and Azaz and Jander combine to send Matsuki away down the right hand side and his attempted cross into the box is blocked out for a corner by da Silva.

Manning swings in the corner over from the right and it’s a training ground move with Matsuki pulling away to the back post and heading the ball into Larin, who takes a touch and then spins with all the grace of a cart horse and toe ends it wide. Good chance that, one that he has to take that first time really.

The way Saints are playing is quite high risk and when it goes wrong there is the capacity for Coventry to cause us a lot of problems, which they do when Bree tries to press and win the ball and doesn’t get there and Coventry break up the left through Eccles and he knocks to to the overlapping da Silva and his cross is met by Sakamoto at the back post but he can’t get his header on target.

Coventry‘s most dangerous looking attacker is Ephron Mason-Clarke and following a corner, the ball is played short to him and he slings over a right footed across from the left which is met well inside the 6 yard box by Wolfenden but he can’t get his header. Bad miss that to be honest.

Haji Wright makes an appearance in the game for the first time, running in off the left wing and as he runs at goal his eventual effort is blocked by THB for a corner. We clear that and face another inswinging cross from the left, and it’s Eccles this time and it’s met really well by Kitching with a flicked header, and Peretz takes off acrobatically to his left to claw it away one-handed. It’s an absolute worldie that I can’t do justice to, but right now in this moment, I think it’s one of the best reaction saves I’ve ever seen. Brilliant.

45 minutes are up and Coventry looking in the more threatening side with Mason-Clark again getting cross in from the left and Wright takes a swing at it from around the penalty spot and it fizzes along the ground and just wide of the far post. Peretz wasn’t getting to that one if it was on target.

Half time and whilst we’ve defended quite well and looked quite tidy in possession, we haven’t really done enough going forward and it’s not surprising, given the lack of pace in the team so we desperately need to add more impetus to our attacks. With no changes off the bench at halftime we have nonetheless, a renewed energy about us with Downes winning the ball in midfield and then Bree finds Matsuki on the right. In a case of giving Coventry a taste of their own medicine, Matsuki switches to his left foot and puts in a cross towards Larin. Larin goes for it and doesn’t get a touch and for a split second it’s going straight in, until Rushworth gets across and touches it onto the post but there is Flynn Downes right in front of him to ram it into the roof of the net. Fucking get in.

What have you got now Frankie boy? Saints continue to cause problems after the goal with THB launching a big ball up to Larin, which he controls somewhat suspiciously with what it looks like his arm before getting wrestled to the ground by Kitching. Free kick given and there must’ve been at least a question in the referee Hallam’s mind, if that was a red or not as he a brandished the yellow card. This is in prime Ryan Manning territory and would the spirit of Gareth Bale come to the fore. Up he steps, over the right hand side of the wall and curling away just wide. Shit.

Coventry begins to reassert themselves with Da Silva put over a couple of decent crosses from the left and from the second one, centre back Kitching rises at the back post but can only head wide. More Coventry pressure with the pacy van Ewick bursting past Azaz on our left and Manning has somehow not anticipated him getting past Azaz and isn’t close enough to stop the cross which is met in the middle by Wright but planted straight at Peretz in the middle of our goal.

Lampard throws on Simms and Thomas Asante in place of Eccles and Wright and Eckert freshens us up with Charles and Archer coming on for Bragg and Larin, both of whom look knackered. Into the last ten and Saints are still playing out from the back with confidence and we knock it around to Manning on the left-hand side who combines with Archer before finding Azaz and his attempt to cross is blocked behind for a corner. This is where we want to be at this stage and not defending our own goal.

In comes the corner from Bree and Downes is wrestle to the ground but as seems to happen, everyone has lost Matsuki and the ball almost bounces of his outstretched right foot and rolls into the net. Get the fuck in there. Fat Frank looks gutted.

89 and Coventry are now left with long throws into the box which we clear and Bree nods it wide for Charles to run out of play but Torp gets in front of him and over he goes. Penalty. What the fuck is he given that for? Shit. No amount of complaining is going to change the decision and up steps Torp and bang, low to the goalkeepers right and we now have the six extra minutes to negotiate. Shit.

Woody comes on for Matsuki which is not particularly surprising but what is surprising is that Woody appears to be playing on the right wing. It comes to predictable avalanche with a cross coming in from Mason-Clark on the left, an attempted back heel by Thomas Asante , then another shot and the ball bounces back to Thomas Asante to volley it for an 8 yards but thankfully straight at the goalkeeper, averting mass heart failure in the away end.

And we’re done and what a fucking win that is. Frank Lampard leaves the bench to go and applaud the travelling Saints fans. What a guy. What a brilliant example of having a game plan that works and then having the players to execute that game plan perfectly. Yes, Tonda Eckert hatched the plan to stop Coventry playing through central midfield and Frank Lampard showed that he had absolutely no idea what to do about it apart from looking confused. I don’t expect he’ll care but it’s a lovely example of karma coming back to bite you in the arse. What goes around comes around. It only got a bit nervy at the end due to a somewhat fortuitous penalty which wasn’t exactly anything that Coventry carved out.

Much of course, is now being made of the upturn under Eckert. Up until recently, I was unconvinced because I though he’s clearly improved things off the field and so you could that with the players being prepared to run for him, for me, the main difference was brought about by doing the obvious… the back 4, the better keeper, round pegs in round holes, the target man striker etc. However, in the wins like today and against Fulham, he has tinkered with the formations and the way of playing and in both games, has made a really positive difference to the way things have turned out. The players have to execute the game plan of course but it’s a great thing when you can have confidence in the manager, which performances like those two will certainly build. You don’t have to go back too far to find a game that he fucked up (Charlton at home), but there have been signs all along that he is a quick learner and these last two wins certainly add to that impression. We are clearly now better against better teams, so maybe the FA Cup quarter-final against Arsenal is not a write-off after all.

So, we basically played a 4-1-4-1 formation with Cam Bragg sat in midfield behind Downes and Jander, who were given instruction to press relatively high and that stopped Coventry playing through the middle through Matt Grimes, who hardly seemed to get on the ball at all. There were threats from out wide from Coventry, particularly through Mason-Clark but he in the main was shackled pretty well by James Bree and the ridiculously good Kuryu Matsuki, who was absolutely everywhere defensively. Ryan Manning had a good day defensively on the left as well and the central defenders as a pairing looks so much better than they did against West Brom just three days ago.

Then you’ve got the goalkeeper Daniel Peretz, who of course made an absolutely ridiculous save from the flicked header at the end of the first half which, had it gone in would’ve completely changed the complexion of the game. He will see that as just doing his job but that’s what a good goalkeeper does, makes saves that change the course of the game and win you points, rather than what we’ve largely had over the past five years or so (Aaron Ramsdale excepted), goalkeepers not making many saves at all.

Up front, we struggled in the first half because of the lack of pace in the team and they didn’t seem to be any way that we were going to score. Canada Cyle mixed up good strength and good touches with looking like a complete carthorse who had never seen a football before as it bounced off him. He was involved in the first goal however, by missing Matsuki’s inswinging cross, with Rushworth tipping it onto the post and Flynn Downes ramming it into the roof of the net. It seemed at the time and as the second half went on that that would be the only goal until we got the bonus of the second from the corner virtually hitting Matsuki right in front of the goal and rolling into the net. It’s just a typical Saints thing to not see out a comfortable win and give a penalty away which gave them four or five minutes to try and get a winner and apart from one dose of pinball around the box which ended up with a shot straight at Peretz, we held out comfortably enough.

This changes nothing for Coventry – they are still going to win the league and it’s just a case of when. Good luck to them and good luck to them trying to survive against better sides with Frank Lampard as manager. When I saw who the referee was today, I was initially a little bit concerned because it was Farai Hallam, who we had against Stoke and he was fucking dreadful but today he was largely excellent, not bowing to the endless whingeing of Coventry players and supporters every time there was any sort of free kick given against them or not given for them. The penalty award looks soft in real time, when you see it on a replay you see that Shea Charles does clumsily stand on Torp’s foot, so that decision is fair enough. The only thing that did annoy me though about the referees performance was that we’ve picked up a couple of bookings this year for players showing obvious dissent at decisions, yet Sakamoto amongst others, showed dissent at every single time there was a decision that didn’t go Coventry’s way and didn’t get booked. Basically, Coventry came across as an entitled bunch of whingeing bastards. Their fans are all moaning about challenges that they feel should have resulted in yellow or red cards for Downes and Matsuki but having looked at both incidents, they are not great but there is no real intent in either. Can we have a moan about Ellis Simms deliberately elbowing Ryan Manning in the face and the ref actually saw that one, probably because it was so premeditated, and only deemed it a yellow?

So, the scenario of being six points behind Wrexham has been averted, momentum is still very much with us and we put the pressure back on Hollywood FC. It does look however that we are just concentrating on one game at a time. As Flynn Downes said in his post match interview, we just have to keep winning from here on, so roll on Wednesday and the visit of another of the form teams in the division in Norwich City, which will be another huge challenge for Tonda Eckert and the boys., in that we won’t be able to play the way we played today and we will have to fill the Leo Scienza sized hole in our attack. After Fulham away and Coventry away, we can all have a bit more confidence in Tonda Eckert to find the answers.

Up the fucking Saints