Coventry City have a terrific opportunity in front of them to pick up lost ground from a frustrating start to the 2023/24 Championship campaign. Back-to-back fixtures within the space of four days at the Coventry Building Society Arena provides the perfect stage for the Sky Blues to shine.
Saturday’s first win on the road – a confidence boosting 3-1 victory at Queens Park Rangers – should give the players the platform from which to build ahead of yet another international pause in the league schedule. First up is Blackburn Rovers – another side, like City, who have struggled to adapt to the loss of key players in the summer following the departures of Ben Brereton Diaz and Bradley Dack – before Norwich City come to town at the weekend.
Rovers travel to the West Midlands on the back of three straight league defeats and having shipped 11 goals in the process against Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Sunderland. They are also likely to be without injured first choice keeper Aynsley Pears – a fact that should give Coventry’s strikers plenty of food for thought as they look to take advantage of a fragile looking defence. But the Sky Blues have had issues of their own at the wrong end of the pitch, and although they won comfortably at Loftus Road, QPR’s late consolation was the latest in a line of goals conceded in the closing stages of games.
Robins appears to be looking for a settled back three, which has been kept the same in the last two games and, given City’s win at the weekend, should stay in place against Rovers. That means Bobby Thomas and Luis Binks either side of stalwart centre-half Kyle McFadzean, assuming the manager isn’t minded to rest the 36-year-old ahead of Saturday.
Deadline day signing Liam Kitching is yet to get his first start for the club since his £4.5m move from Barnsley and will be itching for his chance, while Joel Latibeaudiere was a regular at the start of the campaign. The Jamaican international was deployed at right wing-back at QPR in place of Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, primarily because the manager wanted a more secure option away from home.
And while that was certainly the case, what City gained defensively they lost out going forward. It’s a question of getting the right balance, and one wonders if Sakamoto might be put back in on Wednesday night, particularly given the onus will be on the Sky Blues to attack. The opposite wing-back position currently takes care of itself with Jay Dasilva first pick ahead of the more defence-minded Jake Bidwell.
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