Earlier this season Coventry City picked up a vital 3 points against Sheffield United in what was deemed as a crucial win in an inevitable relegation battle. The win was scruffy, at times lucky, and quite frankly not a great watch.
Since then, we have picked up 16 points in 7 games and witnessed a transformation that not many could have predicted. The wins are anything but lucky and we are consistently giving bloody noses to some of the best teams in the division. The Sky Blues are two points off the play offs with two games in hand., and even with the lingering pessimism associated with being a City fan, it's hard to not get excited.
The win against a more than decent QPR outfit on Saturday was by far and away the best performance of the season, with City executing a perfect pressing game in the first half to set us up nicely for a comfortable win in the second. The only slight surprise from the starting line up was Jamie Allen coming in at the expense of Kasey Palmer. Robins decision was more than vindicated as the combination of Allen, O'hare, Gyokeres and Hamer relentlessly hounded down Rangers anytime they had the ball.
The goal was a prefect example of the never say die attitude adopted recently. O'hare won a lost cause at the by-line to force the ball into the box, then, following a swing and a miss from Allen, Gyokeres picked it up and slammed the ball into the roof of the net. The creation of openings was frequent whilst QPR's threats were few and far between. Having weathered an attempted storm from QPR we got our second via an O'hare / Gyokeres combination in the second half.
I will quite happily hold my hands up, I didn't see a performance like this coming all season following our disrupted start. I genuinely thought we were in a real battle for survival. Hats off to the (few and far between) positive mob who consistently insisted we would come good this year, even whilst we were rooted to the foot of the table.
The big three who we wanted to keep hold of in the summer have become the big four with Sheaf entering the fray now following a host of impressive performances. It is once again testament to our scouting network who spotted a gem that no one else seemed to. Having lost Hyam earlier in the season many thought defensive frailties would be majorly exposed. The back three of Panzo, Rose and Mcfadzean however have looked completely assured and responsible for 4 clean sheets in a row. The latter has also somehow became a Maldini-esque ball playing centre half at the grand old age of 35.
The only way now seems to be up, but what will be the key to continuing on an upwards trajectory? Last season we had similar spells where we looked like certain play off contenders but tailed off for sustained runs of matches. Unfortunately I still feel that our fringe players are not quite at the level to keep up a sustained push towards the play offs. On top of that, we are going to have to stave off bids for Gyokeres who is playing on a different level to anyone in the Championship right now.
If we can keep our star players and recruit a couple of decent wing backs there is no reason to suggest we cannot continue to mount a genuine push for promotion this season. There is not a single team in this league that we should fear on our day.
On top of all this, and I may be clouded by recency bias, the CBS is now finally feeling like a genuine home. There were over 23000 spectators in the ground today and the players and fans were in unison throughout. When we are attacking towards singers corner it feels like we are almost absorbing the ball into the net. At times like this, the decision to move to a 32000 seater stadium all those years ago almost feels vindicated. There was an absolute wall of noise around the arena which you could visibly see the players feeding off and I do not feel that we are anywhere near our ceiling as a club. Hopefully any potential investors in the stadium have been watching recently as they may be tempted to take a punt.
Whilst some are saying that the World Cup break has come at a bad time for us, I am not so sure I subscribe to that school of thought. Whilst we have performed admirably lately the games have been coming thick and fast, coming back from the break with no injuries and fresh legs may do us the world of good. Whether we can go the distance or not remains to be seen but it feels great to have lifted all of the early season pressure of our shoulders. As Robins, says, enjoy it whilst we can!
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