By CovSid67
January 21 2010

I'm not quite sure what's going on, but I'm feeling dangerously optimistic about most things Coventry City - though part of that optimism does seem to depend on Sammy Clingan being on the pitch.

The match against Portsmouth once again proved how reliant we are on him, as we controlled the first half, but looked absolutely clueless when he was replaced at half-time, as we did for most of our recent win-less run.

Reasons for that optimism include a few more decent signings (Wood signing permanently, and Baker looking like a decent acquisition too), the afore-mentioned Clingan's return, Gunnarsson's throw-ins improving and becoming the useful weapon they should be, and the player I had down as the new Keith O'Neill, James McPake, not only finally making it onto the pitch, but staying on it, and putting in some quality displays.

Chris Coleman is still some way from winning me over (Though he's probably not that bothered about doing so), with his substitution of Best for Grandison versus Pompey leaving just about everybody that commented totally bemused (He might have explained the logic behind it by the time you read this!), while some of his other decision making is highly questionable too.

I was hoping that his decision to replace Best with Grandison would be his 'Mickey Adams away at Barnsley' moment, but it turned out to be what it seemed at the time: a massive error of judgment. Playing our in-form striker on the right for the second half didn't impress many people either.

Should our better players have to be sold during the transfer window, Best's goal versus Portsmouth should have added a few pounds to his value, while I doubt Kieran Westwood's friends and family could have been more gushing in their praise than ITV4's commentator's, making rumours of a £1.5 million bid from Sunderland absolutely laughable.

His decision to play in the first fixture against Portsmouth to stop transfer rumours was admirable, and, should he leave, he is going to take some replacing.

Winning four out of the last five Championship fixtures, yet still failing to reach the top half of the table, shows how tight the division is (Or how deep in the mire we were!). Being a mere six points off the top six has seen a few mentions of the play-offs, but Saturday's fixture away at improving Ipswich, on a ground we have failed to win at in our last ten attempts, will probably extinguish such talk again.

And, while I won't get too carried away with recent results, I wonder how many of those people that were criticising Ray Ranson are having a change of opinion now?

Despite the upturn in form, there are still far to many things that need improving before proper thoughts of properly troubling the top of the table can be achieved. For a start, the players need to find some self belief, as, when they want to be, they are actually quite good! They also need to lose the 'what we have we hold' mentality. I don't expect us to be stupidly brave, but we cannot continue to sit on one-goal leads.

Playing to the whistle might be a good idea too! Three injury time goal versus Portsmouth is not acceptable....