Defensive wise we are still a mess and have been most of the season. Are we a back three, four or five side? Cleverley needs to pick one and stick with it, build a side from the back to the front and try to fit players in in between into their natural positions as much as possible. Clearly doing so has been made extremely difficult due to injuries to many key players, Baah, Louza etc but it has allowed players like Vata and even the returning TDB to have to chance to establish himself back into the first XI. Kayembe is better than Sissoko and Ince but not by much. Having a settled backline is crucial. Bond is a no brainer, as is Pollock. Morris tries hard, Laruci is very meh, Porteous is rash at times and Seirralta is more bad than good these days. Having a solid backline (as much as possible) is key to any side. I get we need to change things up and I not knocking TC for that, but it's becoming a bit tiresome, and no backline can settle as a group and work off each other if we keep having different players' week in week out even if said players are still fit from the previous game.
We need a settled back line, but only Pollock deserves a regular place. Hoedt and Pollock would have been a good pairing if Gino hadn't let our Player of the Season go. I suspect TC keeps rotating, based on form, fitness, training attitude and opponents' set-up, in the hope that some combination suddenly clicks.
Bond needs to do better with the free kick - looked far too easy to chip it over the wall and still go in fairly centrally. Kayembe and TDB have an aversion to moving the ball forwards. Vata, Giorgi and Bayo were ineffective. Ngakia and Larouci were both tuuuurrrrrrddddddd. Andrews looked ok when he came on. Pollock and Porto were pretty solid.
Yes. All our backs look better going forward than actually defending. Arguably Ngakia is just about the best, but he was largely responsible for their first goal: He is waiting for the ball to come to him at the back post - no! Just no! - Thorp runs across in front of him and simply knocks it in. The cross came in from the right by a player who was tracked back by Bayo. But Bayo is not properly on him and allows him to get the cross in. Where is Larouci? Doing my cracked record routine I have to point out that too many of our players just seem stupid: These were basic mistakes. OK, so we have inadequate defenders. It seems to me that, injuries excepted, if you have a defence that is struggling you play a system repeatedly, so it simplifies to the defenders what they need to do, week in, week out. Three at the back? OK stick with it. Four at the back? OK stick with it.
I may be blinded by my dislike of him (as a player) but what attribute is Ngakia actually good at? I honestly don't understand what he offers because he's not a good defender, we've seen him lose men like yesterday loads of times, he's not good in the air or particularly good 1-on-1 and consistently miskicks clearances. I get that Andrews can be a liability defensively too but at least he offers something going forward.
I'm starting to believe that TCs desire to play with a back 3 could be a major factor in our defence and midfield. Our 2 WBs just does not work, if a team breaks forward on us our WBs are in no mans land leaving our CBs to cope with too many attackers. Likewise if our 2 CMs are overworked our WBs don't add anything to help them. Yes they sometimes add width in some attacks, esp Andrews but as it stands our WBs don't look part of our defence and don't look like they add anything in midfield. We need a solid 4 man defence and also a strong 3 in midfield, say a 4321. I honestly think the team have no real clue nor ability to play the way TC wants (except in the final third), so that part remains TCs problem and cannot go on...
If Coventry are bang average, it says a lot about how bad our squad is and how astonishing it is that we're top half after 29 games. Coventry played their third choice striker, Thomas-Asante, who they bought from WBA for £3m this summer and brought on their fourth choice striker Bassette, who they bought this summer for £2.5m. We don't even have a third choice striker, let alone a fourth choice. They also bought Rudoni for £6m this summer and Binks (who sat on their bench) for £4m from Bologna. Their goalkeeper is a Swedish international bought for £2m this summer, while we have an injured reserve goal keeper brough in for free. Victor Torp was bough last January for £2.5m. The list just goes on. Player for player, their squad is massively better than ours and frankly they should be completely dominating games like this.
There is a reason why they sacked Mark Robins despite generally being an excellent manager . This season Coventry were badly underperforming after as you say spending big . Their squad should be top 8 at least probably higher .
