Team News
Coventry are likely to be without David Bell, Herman Hreidarsson and Richard Wood.
David Murphy and Stephen Carr are still out but Peter Ramage is available after being ineligible in midweek. Keith Fahey and Steven Caldwell face late fitness tests.
Reverse Fixture
The Sky Blues were the visitors for the opening game at St Andrews in August. Blues won 1-0 with Keith Fahey firing in after Adam Rooney hit the post.
Recent Form
Coventry are 22nd, three points from safety. They have won two of their last six matches and twenty six of their twenty nine points have come at home.
Blues are sixth with and have also won just two of their last six. They have won their last three away matches in the league.
Outlook
While Blues were suffering their expected FA Cup exit to Chelsea the chasing pack in the Championship were trying and failing to take our playoff position. Of the teams around us only Reading and Middlesbrough recorded wins and as Reading’s three points were gained against Portsmouth they may not count in a few weeks’ time. Not that I want Portsmouth to leave the league as that would be a tragedy for their fans and be very messy for the rest of the league. If they are to go under though could they at least do it before we have to play them on 20th March.
So with games in hand we now still sit sixth and none of our playoff rivals seem to be about to put together a consistent run of form. Reading are the only team recording back to back wins and they will now have their sights set on the automatic places like we did a few weeks ago. It just shows how quickly things change in this division. We probably need another six wins to secure a playoff spot and we may end up getting a lot of those away from home. Three out of four of our next away opponents are against sides currently in the relegation positions while Cardiff and Boro visit St Andrews in the same period. In recent years our away form has been poor but recently that has picked up with good wins at Millwall, Leeds and Barnsley.
We can expect the team tomorrow to be very different to that which played Chelsea as so many players were missing. The loan players Huseklepp and Townsend should start after doing well against Derby with Nikola Zigic able to rest his headache given to him by David Luiz’s boot. Hopefully the missing defenders will return so that N’Daw can return to midfield. Coventry will be up for this game and a larger than average crowd is expected despite the early kickoff. I understand that I will be amongst five thousand Blues fans. Let’s see if we can get an all stadium “Shit on the Villa” going.
Gary McSheffrey remains the greatest danger for them although he is still to reclaim the form of Autumn/Winter 2006 when he scored so many goals for us. As they have their own money problems they have not been able to improve their team and lost Lukas Jukiewicz in January. Despite this they have been tough to beat at home so I’m going to go back to my default away prediction.
Sky Blues 1 Blues 1
C’mon you Blue Boys.
@Aylesbury_Blue
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