By CovSid67
March 2 2013

Thanks to the ‘Tickets For Schools’ offer, I took four people who usually stay at home on a Saturday to ‘my world’. They are now fully aware of why I come home so p***ed so often when watching Coventry City.

Lee Carsley’s dismal tactics – not just an opinion, but something he stated in the after-match interview (Not the ‘dismal’ bit) – which either don’t suit the players he has/had at his disposal, or they have simply given up on this season, were a shocker. Anti-football.

These are, in the main, the same players who turned the season round under Mark Robins, and I’m left wondering if he took their footballing brains too when he left. Jennings and Bailey played as if they had never met before, while Carl Baker gave the sort of performance that has the doubters doubting him.

The worst thing a side whose manager wants to play for 1-0 can do is score in the first minute, and so it proved. Said first minute also saw Swindon gifted a gilt-edged chance, and denied a (Soft-looking) penalty. The writing was on the wall from very early on. Most Coventry players spent the match camped around their own penalty area after the goal.

And if Nathan Cameron goes on to play for as long as Ryan Giggs has, it’s to be hoped he would struggle to give as poor a performance again as he did today. He had a shocker. One supporter behind me almost burst blood vessels screaming his opinions in the general direction of the pitch.

A decent manager would have taken him out of the firing line within the first half-an-hour (When asked if he was one of four names on the managerial short-list, Carsley thankfully said ‘no’). A decent manager would also have made changes way before LC did. Cody McDonald was given minutes to prove his worth again. How he must wish he could have stayed at Gillingham.

The referee didn’t help, giving such a poor display that the celebrations for CCFC getting one second half decision saw a more prolonged crowd celebration than the Coventry City goal. When it looked (With around fifteen minutes left) as if the home side would somehow win, every single Coventry City challenge around their own penalty area saw Swindon awarded a free-kick.

He also booked Joe Murphy for time-wasting when all he was guilty of was waiting for Swindon to make a substitution. You couldn't make it up.

And when a seven-year-old child notices that ‘the team in red fall over easily’, you know you are playing a team full of cheating bar-stewards. Swindon’s tactics sucked as much as the home side – as they did when the two sides met earlier in the season.

Back to CCFC’s tactics …. Leon Clarke might as well have taken a deck-chair onto the pitch and stayed seated, so poor was the service to him. He did manage one header, which saw a wonder save from Swindon’s keeper. It was a result-changer. As was McSheffrey’s failure to touch the ball into an empty net in the first-half.

Coventry City might not have deserved a win, but could have stolen one if they had showed any sort of willingness to join in or compete.

Carsley stated the tactic was to ‘drop deep’, and this was like watching Andy Thorn at his naïve worst. He also claimed Moussa was the ‘spare man’, and supposedly the out-let for the team. The passing was so shocking I doubt he touched the ball more than half-a-dozen times. One of those saw him open the scoring.

The ignorant and ill-informed once again blamed SISU, though the two goals were down to nothing more than dismal defending, not failure to pay the rent. It’s little wonder the board don’t want to pay up as the Ricoh is quite clearly not ‘home’.

Carl Dickinson was one of few decent displays amongst those in Sky Blue, and looked far angrier than the majority of the team as the two soft goals were conceded. He deserved better. Murphy also made a few decent saves to keep Swindon out till the 84^th minute leveller. Minutes later they scored a winner, which cost Coventry City any real chance of making the play-offs, and knacked my 80/1 accumulator.

TEAM: Murphy, Christie, Dickinson, Cameron, Martin, Baker, Bailey, Jennings, Moussa (McDonald 87), McSheffrey (Bell 79), L Clarke. SNU: Dunn, J Clarke, Edjenguele, Thomas, Fleck, McDonald.