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Much Improved, City!
By CovSid67 March 10 2008
Two home games, two much improved displays, and four much needed points! And it there was a goalscorer amongst our ranks, we might just have run up a couple of cricket scores. With most of the clubs around us also picking up points recently, it's a good job we've finally decided to join in....

v QPR

I'm not sure why this match was switched from the usual midweek matchday of Tuesday to a Wednesday, but after recent displays I wasn't sure if the fact I was available to watch from the kick-off was a good thing or a bad thing! A massively improved display meant it proved to be the former. Coventry City created enough quality chances to turn a massive minus deficit (Somewhere around -13) into at least '0' in the goals for/goals against column. There are displays that look as if, with a bit of fine tuning, Coventry City aren't to far away from being a half-decent side. On the flip side, and more often than not this season, other days we just look bloody awful. The first half of this one was about as one-sided a match as has been seen in Coventry's favour this season, and Andy Marshall barely had a touch of the ball through-out. Against a team who have moved away from the wrong end of the table since their minted backers came in, and especially against a side that had recently enjoyed 3-0 hammerings over promotion hopefuls Bristol City and Stoke, this was a decent result. Annoyingly, it could have been far better had we taken just one of the many chances created (Or had Dann's early disallowed effort counted!), with Best and Mifsud the biggest culprits, and this could yet come back to bite us where it hurts when the season ends.

Team: Marshall, Osbourne, Fox, Dann, Ward, Mifsud, Tabb, (Gray 75), Doyle, S. Hughes, Thornton, Best. SNU: Konstantopolous, Hall, Andrews, Simpson.

v Norwich

Thanks to Andy Marshall wearing a goalkeepers kit that would have looked more at home on the Norwich keeper (Grey, with yellow trim, whereas the Norwich keeper simply wore a grey kit), I managed to miss Jay Tabb's goal, as I made my way back round the concourse to take up a position where I would watch wave after wave of Coventry City attack! (That'll teach me not to go to the top of the steps and check properly). As with the QPR match, plenty of chances were created, and all but Tabb's individual effort (Created thanks to a superb 40-yard pass from Doyle) were squandered. Such was Coventry's dominance though that Norwich boss Glenn Roeder made two changes within the first half-hour of this match! Norwich were reduced to nine men in the second half after both Doherty and Russell (In his first game back from a suspension!) were given second yellow cards, with the away side deserving some credit for still opting to play with three strikers, despite their lack of numbers! Coventry couldn't make the extra two-men advantage count, though never looked like giving up their grip on a very valubale three points. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the match (Even more surprising than Coventry beating a side that had lost only two matches in seventeen!) was the inclusion of Ireland on the bench. Admittedly, it's a good few months since I last saw him drop a howler or three (Reports suggest he's still making them!), but the improvement must be almost immeasurable if he justifies a place in the sixteen! Stephen Hughes in goal would seem a better option to me.

Team: Marshall, Osbourne, Fox, Dann, Ward, Mifsud, Tabb, Doyle, S. Hughes, Thornton, Best (Simpson 85). SNU: Ireland, Hall, Gray.

Four points from six against two form sides was probably far more than most realists would have hoped for, and with results going slightly against Coventry City on Saturday afternoon, anything but a win versus Norwich would have seen us in real trouble. If Kevin Thornton can maintain - and maybe even improve on - the busy and positive contributions he has made over the last few matches, and Leon Best can work out the offside rule, the necessary points total to avoid a last day of the season nail-biter might just be avoided. Michael Mifsud finding anything near to what might be described as 'decent form' would be a bonus too....

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