A Tale Of Two Halves

[Ron]

As a pro-Millen man, I was gutted with the performance and shape we put forward in the first half today. Regardless of your bias one way or another, I'm sure we can all agree if we play like that much more this season we will be in trouble. Stead was isolated with the ball constantly, we tried to play down the wings against a team of thugs (created nothing down the middle in the whole of the first-half, except from a Coventry backpass!) and Danny Rose's positioning as a centre-mid was appalling. Tactically it was naive and didn't play to the strengths of our personnel, despite Jon Stead's best efforts. The first goal was unfortunate but should have been dealt with better, and the second is a routine City mistake from a set-piece.

Second half, when we switched to a 4-4-2, we looked a far brighter side; 2 banks of four with Elliott looking superb and Stead again classy. Haynes isn't back to fitness yet and faded but we looked like a decent side after the break and would have won it if Coventry hadn't set out their stall to defend after we gifted them goals in the first period. We didn't looked the finished article after the break but James had little to do and if one of Elliott's headers hadn't hit the bar or forced a superb save from Westwood we would have been back in business.

At half-time I was ready to eat my words about Millen. We're in a poor position, and both home games this week have yielded poor results. I don't think any manager should be changed after 6 games in charge and the shoots of green are there with how we played in the second half. However, it depends which City turn up against Burnley & Portsmouth in two difficult away games to come. In fairness, if it's the first-half, we're in trouble and real questions have to be asked.