Sky Blues and a new venue

Last updated : 24 February 2006 By Tony Scholes
James Scowcroft
I was looking it up earlier today and I’ve seen us play eleven times at Coventry previously and only returned home form defeats twice whilst seeing us win on no fewer than seven occasions. It doesn’t get much better than that away from home so what have they done, they’ve moved elsewhere.

It’s the Ricoh Arena now and I assume it’s going to be better than Highfield Road. Perhaps they’ve got a new PA announcer rather than the old Barry White sound-a-like, but hopefully it will be a venue that brings us just as much success as the previous venue did.

Coventry were still to try out the new stadium, or should I say arena, last time we met. That was on the second Saturday of the season and our 4-0 win proved to their first defeat of the season despite starting with three away games.

The following week they moved in to the Ricoh with a 3-0 win over QPR and have since lost three league games there against Hull, Palace and Stoke although the last of them was as far back as early November, in fact their last home defeat was on the same day as our last away win at Luton. Since then they have won six and drawn three home games.

It is without doubt their home form that has seen them climb the table, a move that has seen them go above us in the last couple of weeks, their away record is worse than ours with just two wins all season.

They looked a poor side when we beat them 4-0 back in August, and to be honest they looked cast iron relegation candidates based on that performance even taking into account they played over half the game with ten men following the dismissal of Stephen Hughes just before half time.

He’s one of four Coventry players to be sent off this season with Matt Heath, Claus Jorgensen and Micky Doyle having also seen red. That’s some way short of Millwall’s thirteen red cards but Coventry are alongside Millwall with the most yellow cards this season, a grand total of 76.

They’ve had a few loan players since we last met and one of them, goalkeeper Marton Fulop, remains on loan. Others have returned to their clubs whilst Don Hutchison (Millwall) has made his loan move a permanent one.

Manager Micky Adams has made four other signings since our 4-0 win, they are Andy Impey from Nottingham Forest, Brighton’s Paul Watson, Youssef Sofiane from West Ham and most recently he signed Dennis Wise after his tantrum led departure from Southampton.

Apart from not having been beaten at home in ten games, they are currently on a run of four successive home wins, the last points they dropped at their new venue came in the last game of 2005 against bottom club Crewe.

Click HERE to see all Coventry’s results this season.

Three wins at Coventry in four seasons since they lost their place in the Premiership – we could do with a boost and another win there tomorrow would certainly move us back above them and into the top half of the table.

Team News

Manager Micky Adams had promised changes following the 3-1 defeat at Plymouth last week and he’s certainly forced into some changes with Ady Williams and former Burnley target Gary McSheffrey both ruled out with suspensions.

Williams may be out but it is good news for Adams defensively. Another former target Robert Page returns from suspension whilst two players, Richard Shaw and Marcus Hall, have returned to training this week after injury and are back in contention. It was defensively where they were poor last week and it would be no surprise to see at least two of them, if not all three, back in the starting line up.

Hughes, the player sent off at Burnley, is currently out with an achilles injury whilst Isaac Osbourne and former Claret Richard Duffy are ruled out with knee injuries.

The suggestion is that Adams will choose the following team: Marton Fulop, Andrew Whing, Robert Page, Matt Heath, Andy Impey, James Scowcroft, Don Hutchison, Micky Doyle, Marcus Hall, Stern John, Dele Adebola. Subs from: Clayton Ince, Richard Shaw, Dennis Wise, Clause Jorgensen, Andy Morrell, Kevin Thornton.

Click HERE to see Coventry’s full squad.

It’s a case of some good news and some bad news for Steve Cotterill. The good news is that Frank Sinclair is back from suspension, the bad news is that John McGreal joins Wayne Thomas sat watching. Johnny Mac picked up his fifth yellow card against Wolves and sits this game out and Thomas completes his two match ban for making a polite enquiry to referee Darren Deadman at Ipswich.

There have been suggestions of injury worries, the club themselves revealed that Kyle Lafferty had been recalled form Darlington because of injuries and suspensions but, apart from Danny Coyne, only Garreth O’Connor is believed to have any sort of problem and he’s expected to be fit.

Kyle is back, will be in the squad, and following a sound display in the reserves in midweek it would be no surprise to see goalkeeper Mark Crossley on the bench. As for starting, assuming there are no other injuries, I think it will be just a case of captain Frank for Johnny Mac.

The team could be: Brian Jensen, Wade Elliott, Michael Duff, Frank Sinclair, Jon Harley, John Spicer, Micah Hyde, James O’Connor, Chris McCann, Gifton Noel-Williams, Michael Ricketts. Subs from: Mark Crossley, Duane Courtney, Danny Karbassiyoon, Garreth O’Connor, Kyle Lafferty, Marc Pugh.

Last Time

Our last visit to Highfield Road ended in a 2-0 win with John Oster scoring his only Burnley goal and Ian Moore his last. There’s more on this and other recent games at Coventry in Memories of Highfield Road in our look back section.

The teams last season were,

Coventry: Luke Steele, Andrew Whing, Ady Williams, Dean Leacock, Steve Staunton (Stuart Giddins 66), Graham Barrett, Micky Doyle, Stephen Hughes (Neil Wood 45), Gary McSheffrey, Christian Negouai (Stern John 45), Dele Adebola. Subs not used: Richard Shaw, Claus Jorgensen.

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Gary Cahill, John McGreal, Mo Camara, John Oster (Lee Roche 88), Tony Grant, Micah Hyde, Jean-Louis Valois, Ian Moore, Graham Branch. Subs not used: Danny Coyne, Paul Scott, Joel Pilkington, Matt O’Neill.

Previous 20 Seasons

Season

Div

Ven

Result

Att

Scorers

1999/2000

FAC

a

0-3

22,774

.

2001/02

1

a

2-0

16,849

Taylor Little

..

h

1-0

18,751

Taylor

2002/03

1

h

3-1

13,470

Blake(pen) Grant Davenport(og)

.

.

a

1-0

13,659

Cox

2003/04

1

h

1-2

10,358

Blake

..

a

0-4

12,953

.

2004/05

C

h

2-2

10,919

Blake(pen) Branch

.

.

a

2-0

13,236

Oster Moore

2005/06

C

h

4-0

11,683

G O'Connor Thomas Akinbiyi(2)

Click HERE to see all our results against Coventry, right from the first meeting, a 5-0 FA Cup win in 1911.