FAN’S VIEW: 24/25 – No.39: COVENTRY AT HOME

OXFORD UNITED 2 COVENTRY CITY 3

The talk as we left the ground after the game was that this was better. Radio Oxford summaries and callers said this was better. I thought this was better. How could it not be better?

Not only did we have four shots on target – that’s four more than the previous weekend – we scored for the first time since 1 Feb. And we didn’t just get one goal, we got two. Wow!

But we let in three. So the end result was the same. Once more not even a single point gained in our quest to get the required number, whatever that may be, to survive and face another season of this.

I’m not having any of this “we deserved a point”. Nearly every goal scored can be traced back to a mistake of sorts, relatively minor through to a massive cock up, by the team conceding. We cocked up more than they did.

In general play we made more mistakes than Coventry did. They had more shots than we did and more – six – on target. Possession wasn’t far off 50/50 and most of the passing stats were about even but they had 41 touches in our box compared to the 16 we had in theirs. We had just three corners. Our visitors had 11.

Based on this and what I witnessed I can’t conclude anything other than that the Sky Blues were the better team and deserved all three points.

Did our performance give me hope? Yes it did but I’m still worried given the fixtures we have remaining. We next face Norwich. The league table shows that they’re a bit behind Coventry but given that we’re away I’d categorise this as a similarly difficult challenge to that provided on Saturday. I fully expected us to lose to Coventry and expect the same to happen on Friday night although after the manner of this defeat my level of optimism has risen slightly. We did show some attacking threat and if we are able to cut out those numerous errors, who knows?

I don’t think I’ll ever warm to 12:30 kick-offs but unfortunately they’re now more likely than the traditional three o’clock start. Hard to feel a genuine football build up and atmosphere of anticipation. That didn’t stop the travelling fans from the West Midlands and no “I didn’t cry in a minute” or at any time come to that. They certainly were vibrant in their section in the North stand.

Given the run we’re on and the clear lack of confidence, conceding early was the last thing we wanted. It took just seven minutes for us to fall behind.  I think Tatsuhiro Sakamoto is a standout player. With Ciaron Brown facing him, a little twist one way then the other followed by a delicious cross was how the goal was set up. The ball went over our two tall centre-halves, the returning Elliott Moore and Michal Helik. Jack Rudoni, a £5m purchase from Huddersfield last summer, dived into the gap between Moore and Peter Kioso and gave Jamie Cumming no chance.

That was a quality goal and one that I think needs to be recognised as such without throwing too much blame about but the question should always be asked, what could we have done better? Stopping the cross coming in would be the answer. Easier said than done but Brown stood off Sakamoto and allowed him the space to get the ball over without much hindrance. Of course if he’d got closer perhaps Sakamoto would just have gone round him.

I had a lot of sympathy for Brown. He prefers to be centre half but was undoubtedly the best option at left-back and was up against a highly skilled opponent. Also he was being asked to do the heavy lifting when it came attacking down the left, not that there was a huge amount of that going on. It seemed to me that Tyler Goodrham, who was on the left of the three behind Mark Harris, drifted inside a lot and wasn’t really playing as a wide man. On the other side Shemmy Placheta was with Ole Romeny either going out that way or supporting Mark Harris down the middle. I detected the first signs of a partnership forming between Placheta and Romeny. It was no wonder we were much more dangerous down the right than the left.

In the first half they were keeping the ball much better than us and finding space much easier than we were. The two go hand in hand. When they had the ball at the back, which wasn’t that often, they had no trouble playing out. We had no effective press. It can’t be right when Harris has to chase from one man to another. He’s never going to get there in time. A waste of energy unless we do it collectively but perhaps there’s the fear that teams we’re now facing are good enough to play through us if we try and do it. In contrast I noticed that when we had the ball deeper in our own half we got crowded and didn’t have the belief or ability to play out. Not being able to do so meant we at times just booted it away and conceded possession – although those possession stats probably tell that this didn’t happen as often as my mind told me it had.

Before the break it was Placheta who, at last, got a shot on target for the Yellows. Romeny was the one player who looked like he wouldn’t be out of place in the Coventry team but to be fair he wasn’t the only one making intelligent runs up front. Easy from the back of the stands I know but these runs were not spotted, particularly when the back line had the ball at their feet. Even when there was a brief moment when they weren’t under too much pressure, heads were not up to see what was on. Or at least that’s my perception.

We came out for the second half with a bit more vigour and it wasn’t long before we’d equalised. The ball went loose after Placheta had been robbed and Cameron Brannagan played it first time to the right. Placheta set off but the key to what occurred was the tangle between Liam Kitching and Romeny. I use the word “tangle.” Coventry claimed a foul. They’re biased. I’m biased. The way I saw it was that they were both holding and my bias is such that, without any evidence, I’ll say the man in Sky Blue started it. He ended up going to ground leaving Placheta free. We were all expecting him to shoot as he approached the six yard box from an angle but instead, with the outside of his right foot, he set up Romeny who side footed home with Harris jumping over the ball.

Well done to Romeny not only for the finish but for his strength in battling with Kitching. I genuinely don’t think there was much in it but time to mention the referee anyway.

Just over a year ago he took charge of our home game against Wigan and I wrote this: “And a word on the referee, Jeremy Simpson. He took so long to get the game restarted after a stoppage that he really was a Mr Slow”. I’d also noted how bad he was when he was in charge of another home game earlier that season. He did nothing to hurry the game along here and waited until the 89^th minute to show a yellow card to keeper Oliver Dovin. No point at that stage when he’d been time wasting for a fair while. Simpson was never going to show a second yellow in added time.

That neither camp was happy with his performance says a lot. Brannagan was booked in first half stoppage time for diving. Couldn’t believe it at the time and replays show that he was caught and didn’t dive. Should have been a free-kick to us. Outrageous. The man is a clown. When Dovin made a second half save from Romeny it wasn’t just a slight touch he got on the ball but big strong hands diverting the ball well wide behind the goal. Simpson points for a goal-kick. I was expecting him to hold play up, discard his boots and pop on a red nose and size 20 brightly coloured shoes. His assistant put him right.

Now to build from this and hopefully grow and go on and win the game. Not a bit of that. Five minutes later we’d gifted a goal. They played a high ball down their right flank and Helik chasing back and facing the car park, back heeled it away. A couple of Coventry players got touches on the ball but it was never under their control. Brannagan got a foot on it sending it high right into the heart of our penalty area. Why he did that I’ll never know. Perhaps it wasn’t intentional with the intended destination of the ball being elsewhere. It was a mistake whichever way it’s looked at. But I sat horrified as Cumming didn’t come for it. He just froze and waited for the ball to come to him. It was allowed to bounce high and Ephron Mason-Clark out jumped our no.1 to head over him and into the net. The commentator on the extended highlights clip described it as “one of the softest goals you’ll see all season” and added “even with arms and gloves he couldn’t get as high as Mason Clarke”.  Cumming has been great for us this year and many have him second behind Brown for player of the season but this was an absolute howler. Perhaps he hadn’t seen Mason-Clark coming? Kioso has to shoulder a fair amount of responsibility too. He had been marking Mason-Clark but the Coventry no.10 reacted way quicker than our right-back.  M-C read what was happening and had taken four steps before Kioso realised much too late that there was danger. If he’d gone with his man there’s a fair chance we would have remained level, provided of course he had not delivered a rugby tackle. So three players culpable to varying degrees. No wonder the visitors scored. Opponents are never as generous to us. Its reasons like this that mean we’re heading in one direction in the table and Coventry the other.

On a positive note we didn’t let our heads drop. Will Vaulks intercepted and played an exceptional pass with the outside of his foot that dissected the Coventry back line and sent the always alert Romeny racing though on goal. The shot wasn’t bad but if only he could have kept it low we may well have been celebrating our second. This was the incident where Simpson thought the forward had just missed the target.

We soon were on our feet again though because we scored from the corner. I hate it when someone says “Told you so”. I am though tempted to point out that in the previous FV I said our most likely source of a goal was getting on the end of a corner or free-kick and that we were nowhere near as good without Elliott Moore in these situations. Our returning captain headed home Goodrham’s corner. TG delivers tempting corners. Probably the best we’ve got. For a while I’ve thought he needs to be doing more to justify a starting place and there was some improvement here. As a family member said though, can’t keep him in the team just because he’s good at corners.

This time we maintained parity for a little longer than the first time we’d got ourselves level. Nine minutes instead of five. Could have been sooner though given that we gave away a penalty in the 66^th minute. Taking this incident in isolation I have to say that Simpson got this absolutely right. Kioso was shirt pulling and he then jumped all over the player he was impeding long before the ball had arrived in the box. Harris and Brannagan were both blatantly holding Coventry players. I could not see them doing the same to us. We got what we deserved. I want to see shirt pulling and holding eradicated from the game. It’s not natural, it’s cheating. As long as referees don’t penalise it players will continue to do it. As a manager I’d be annoyed if the opposition were getting away with it but we weren’t doing likewise. This though looked way over the top to me. Consistent and correct application of the laws of the game is what I want to witness in every match.

Cumming went down low to his right to stop Ellis Simms’s spot kick and Jake Bidwell’s follow up crashed back off the bar. Redemption of sorts for our keeper and this should have given us the boost we needed. But oh no, not us, not the way things are going at the moment.

We were attempting to make progress down the right when Harris tried a flicked back heel pass without looking where he was putting the ball. It was needlessly given away. Coventry took over with one and two touch football. Kioso had his arms all over Mason-Clark. No lesson learned. I’ve been quite a fan of Kioso but playing like this he is a liability. We switched off. Vaulks for one was arguing with the referee and not looking at the play as they took the free-kick quickly. Bidwell was in acres of space. The cross came in, Brown missed it and Sakamoto slammed home. If a team defends like that it doesn’t deserve to win. It’s basic stuff. It has no place in park football let alone the Championship. Other teams aren’t so naïve but we’re rather good at shooting ourselves in the foot.

At this juncture the commentator called the second period “the half that keeps on giving” and then “we’ve still got 20 glorious minutes remaining”. We did come close again from a corner with Dovin eventually making a save but for Oxford fans this was not glorious. None of our subs had very long to make an impact and none of them did. I was still disappointed, particularly in Matt Phillips and Alex Matos. Players I was initially quite excited about. I can though see Stan Mills and Siriki Dembele getting more game time than these two. Provided they stay fit Placheta and Romeny should be shoo in starters.

After the mid-week fixtures each Championship club has played 35 games. Eleven remaining with 33 points to play for. We’re seven points above 22^nd place which is occupied by Luton and have a better goal difference than them. Plymouth are a point behind the Hatters and bottom club Derby two behind. The three other teams below us are Hull, Stoke and Cardiff. These are only two points behind. As it always has been it is very much a case of having three teams worse off than us.  I therefore couldn’t understand one of the people on Radio Oxford on Saturday saying that Luton’s 1-0 win over Portsmouth was a good result for us because Pompey were only just above us in the table. We can’t be doing with teams below us picking up points whilst we’re not. Over the last six games we’ve got the joint worst record with Derby, just two points gained. Plymouth have got eight, Luton & Cardiff five and Hull & Stoke seven. If we don’t get a move on we’ll be caught and overtaken.