The winner came in stoppage time after what had almost seemed a fifteen minute barrage towards the home goal following the sending off of Gael Bigirimana who found a novel way to celebrate his 18th birthday with a very special red (birthday) card.
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| Lee Grant kept us in it in the first half |
Up to the time of the dismissal on 81 minutes you wouldn't have put much money on a Burnley win and certainly at half time you wouldn't have even put a spare penny on a successful return after a shocking first 45 minutes.
By half time I'd already decided on a report title of 'Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse'. If you thought Reading was bad; if you thought Barnsley was bad, I can assure you that this was considerably worse than either of those two performances.
Manager Eddie Howe made just the one change for this game with Keith Treacy restored at the expense of Charlie Austin who, we later learned, was on the bench due to suffering from a toe infection. This time we had Ross Wallace back on the right, Junior Stanislas in the centre and the restored Treacy on the left, leaving Jay Rodriguez as a lone striker, a role I don't think ever sees us get the best from him.
In the only other change, Alex MacDonald replaced Dean Marney on the bench. Marney had been a regular until recently but now looks to have totally fallen out of favour.
We needed to start well, I felt, to try and get those last two games out of the system. Worryingly, the start was downright shocking. Poor David Edgar came close to gifting them four opportunities in the opening ten minutes, but it wasn't just him to be fair.
Goalkeeper Lee Grant apart, I can't think of any player who came close to doing himself justice during the first half. Thankfully Grant did. Had he not done so then we would have, without doubt, gone in at half time behind. He made some good saved, and none better or more important than the one that denied Cody McDonald just before half time.
By then, Howe had made a change. Austin came on for Treacy with five minutes of the half remaining. We suspected an injury for two reasons. One, Treacy was by no means our worst player and there were more suitable candidates to be hauled off, and two, five minutes before half time seemed a strange time to make a tactical change.
As it turned out, it was tactical. Howe wasn't impressed with Treacy so I can only assume there were others who must have felt mightily relieved to still be on the pitch.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at half time. It really was that bad, but there again we were level and I would have taken a 0-0 draw then and come home feeling we'd robbed a Coventry side that, let's be honest, were hardly a decent looking side.
We'd had a header over from Andre Amougou and a missed kick from Jay Rod, but that was about it and the quality of football was, frankly, dire.
The second half started better and we had a couple of chances that Austin missed and then former Scunthorpe goalkeeper Joe Murphy was finally called into action to save from Stanislas.
"This is a bit better," I thought but then we did what we do most games, we conceded a goal, and another poor one it was. Chris Hussey got down the left flank for Coventry and when the cross came over it was headed home by Cody McDonald who far too easily got the better of Brian Easton.
At that point, even the 0-0 option had gone, and I don't think anyone in the away end would have put much money on Burnley getting anything.
One thing we were doing successfully was collecting yellow cards from a referee who, I'm sure, doesn't even bother putting them in his pocket. Jay and Marvin Bartley had been ludicrously carded in the first half and then Wallace followed.
Wallace's next involvement was more dramatic. By then, Ben Mee had come on for Amougou and he hit a long ball up the pitch that saw Jay Rod get up between two Coventry players. He got more than he bargained for; he sustained a broken nose but won the header. Austin dummied it for Wallace who was left with the goal in front of him. He placed his shot brilliantly into the top left hand corner before heading for the Burnley fans to celebrate.
Level, but we were soon thanking Grant again when he brilliantly kept out a Sammy Clingan free kick as Coventry looked to wrestle the initiative back and get their noses in front again. and then, at the other end, Austin had a shot well saved by Murphy before hitting the second effort out for a thrown in on the far side. On another day he could have had a couple of goals, but that's what goalscorers are like, they miss chances because they get there to miss them.
We were possibly looking the more likely, and when Bigirimana was sent off it lifted us even more. Howe described the red card as 'harsh but understandable'. I've seen yellow cards given for worse offences this weekend but with this referee it was never going to be yellow.
Graham Scott has handed out no fewer than eight cards in this game, and that has left Burnley with a fine for collecting five of them. If anyone can explain to me how on earth this was an eight card game I'd be very interested in listening to them.
Coventry did just what Preston did at Burnley early last season after being reduced to ten men; they went 4-4-1 and dropped deeper and deeper. All that did was allow us to play the game virtually in the final third which in turn put the home side under more and more pressure.
A goal finally looked likely but when the fourth official came to offer us the extra minutes it was still 1-1. Six minutes might have seemed a lot to some, but the Coventry fans need to be pointing fingers very long and hard at their goalkeeper.
He was finally punished for time wasting but on more than one occasion he instructed the ball boy not to throw the ball back to delay the restart.
Stanislas got good possession but with players left and right he opted to go it alone, bringing with it a harsh reaction from some of his team mates. He wasn't happy with Austin's reaction and clearly raised his hands to him. Austin certainly looked less than happy with that.
He looked decidedly happier a couple of minutes later when, yet again, he was in just the right place. This time, Coventry failed to clear a corner. It dropped for McCann who turned and pushed it through for Austin. My first thought was that he was offside, but the replay on the big screen confirmed he was definitely onside. He wasn't going to miss this one and in the fourth minute of stoppage time we were in front.
Coventry went forward. They won a corner, but in truth we saw the game out just as easily as Reading had done at the Turf a week earlier and our third away win was in the bag.
I'm not sure how to sum this one up. We were so bad in the first half it was frightening. Having then gone behind in the second half a third successive defeat looked on the cards (and not Mr Scott's cards). Somehow we rescued it, but it can't paint over the fact that for too long in this game we simply just weren't anywhere near good enough.
Still, what looked as though it was going to be "Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse" did finally become "All's well that ends well" with those two goals.
The teams were;
Coventry: Joe Murphy, Richard Keogh, Cyrus Christie, Richard Wood, Chris Hussey, David Bell, Sammy Clingan, Gael Bigirimana, Conor Thomas, Cody McDonald (Roy O'Donovan 68), Lukas Jutkiewicz. Subs not used: Chris Dunn, Carl Baker, Gary Deegan, Nathan Cameron.
Yellow Cards: David Bell, Joe Murphy.
Red Card: Gael Bigirimana.
Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Andre Amougou (Ben Mee 65), David Edgar, Brian Easton, Marvin Bartley, Chris McCann, Ross Wallace, Junior Stanislas, Keith Treacy (Charlie Austin 40), Jay Rodriguez (Zavon Hines 75). Subs not used: Jon Stewart, Alex MacDonald.
Yellow Cards: Jay Rodriguez, Marvin Bartley, Ross Wallace, David Edgar, Zavon Hines.
Referee: Graham Scott (Oxfordshire).
Attendance: 12,785 (including 987 Clarets).