CITY 2 COVENTRY CITY 2
This was a difficult match to analyse. The weather was fine. The turnout at 23,093 was poor because, presumably, of the television coverage. The opening exchanges were very much in Leicester’s favour and yet the eventual result was highly unsatisfactory. The outcome was not, in the event, disastrous, but it just might have been: that is sufficient reason to attempt a serious analysis.
Berner succumbed to a calf strain after the preliminaries. This was a pity (the headline was already written!). He was replaced by McGivern who is young, but showed some promise and confidence, suffering a horrible nutmeg in the second half!
Leicester were on the attack from the bell. Dyer was busy as ever, and found space on the left before passing deftly to King in the middle who looked up, placed his shot low and quite hard to the left of Westwood. Leicester were one up after four minutes: the excitement was palpable.
The game re-started. Coventry tested the Leicester defence with Stead prominent, but Hobbs and Morrison, looked sure footed, passing the ball around elegantly. Solano contributed but, initially, seemed less than keen to hold on to the ball. In time, he settled and was responsible for a lovely sweeping cross-pitch pass. He is a highly polished player…..
Gallagher was on song again. Very ubiquitous, looking confident, teeing up passes and one found King’s head in the 19th minute and was looped into the top right hand corner of the goal past Westwood and down behind the line. There was some dispute about the touch judge’s decision, but it looked good from J1 X182 (!) and Westwood was well beaten.
At this stage, it looked as though Leicester might pop in at least half a dozen goals. However, this was definitely not to be. Two goals down after 19 minutes, Coventry City’s heads did not go down. Indeed, they rose and battled hard.
The balance of the first half was a fairly even affair. Gallagher and Waghorn featured, both taking quite severe knocks and Clinton Morrison’s temper overheated. Nevertheless, there were definite signs of Coventry coming back into the contest. Hobbs & Morrison were comfortable, but they were busy.
At the break, after 3 minutes stoppage time, it was still 2-0 to Leicester. “The Times Newspaper” said Coventry were “bereft of ideas and defensive co-ordination at half time”. It is impossible to agree with that assessment. Coventry were proving to be resilient well before half time.
After the break, Coventry kept up the pressure and in the 54th minute it was James McPake, who came forward from the back four, and met a centre on the full with some style and Weale had no chance at all. Leicester were now beginning to look a little ragged and the atmosphere around the ground changed from one of resigned patience to one of outright impatience.
What had gone wrong? As already stated, it is hard to analyse. However, the half time talk cannot have been beneficial. Maybe Nigel Pearson has his mind on his contract negotiations and did not notice the resilience of the Coventry performance in the latter part of the first half. That doesn’t seem very likely. Maybe the captaincy of the team was not what it might have been. Oakley has not, on limited evidence from this source, had such a good year as in 2009 and maybe he doesn’t look and sound like an inspirational leader which is an attribute required sometimes when dealing with a resurgent opposition.
It is perhaps surprising that one of the back four do not captain the team; that is where the strength lies in the team and Hobbs had a very good game, as ever. Poor captaincy, nevertheless, has to give way to the point that Coventry continued to perform well in the second half. Gurnarrson, a less than secret weapon from the Northern hemisphere, came on for Bell and caused trouble for Leicester with his long and accurate throws, skilful corners and his provocative demeanour.
At this stage it was remarkable that Nigel Pearson made no substitutes for Leicester at all. It was very plain that an injection of new blood was needed. Not until the 78th minute did Pearson send on Kermorgant. He was not the high impact player that was needed nor was Howard, who came on in the 88th minute. What was the point of that manoeuvre? Enough said. Just one minute before Howard’s arrival, Deegan had poked in the equaliser in controversial circumstances. However, it was hard to dispute that the equaliser was deserved on the overall run of play.
City: Weale; Solano, Hobbs, Morrison, McGivern, Oakley, A King, Wellens, Gallagher, Waghorn, Dyer. Subs: Logan, Neilson, Brown (83 for Solano), Howard (87 for Waghorn), Adams, N'Guessan, Kermorgant (76 for Gallagher).
Coventry: Westwood; Wright, Cranie, McPake, Wood, Baker, Clingan, Deegan, Bell, Stead, Morrison. Subs: Konstantopolous, Hall, Gunnarsson (56 for Bell), Barnett, Hussey, Eastwood (65 for Stead), Sears (75 for Baker).
Referee: L Mason. Attendance: 23,093.
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation