However, leaving the away end brought back memories of the shambolic organisation and treatment that the police carried out on our European forays. I am not giving the time of day to banners written by infant brains. If there was any question mark about the M69 edition being a ‘proper’ derby, rub that out. It was toxic and nasty on occasions.
It was a fact before this game that some Coventry fans had never seen their team beat Leicester. We had the opportunity to quite rightly lord it up – this was their chance to level up or, if not, have a weekend where they could give some back. And why not? Policing of celebration is one of modern football’s biggest curses. Isn’t it what it’s all about?
In retrospective the events of Saturday made me think, while things on the pitch look rosy, there are ‘infrastructure’ issues. That’s not a dig at the terrible logistics at the stadium where common sense on travel, transport and policing appeared to have disappeared.
I have a worry throughout the season, that we are still just a little too… well, soft. We have had this excellent record-projecting form. Over December, it went further up in the gears with squad depth and more goals kicking in. We’ve been a points machine. The late victory at the Hawthorns seemed to galvanise an improvement in performance.
But there’s still goals going in. Late goals. Direct or set piece situations. I was surprised that we are one of the better teams at conceding goals in the last fifteen minutes of the game because it’s felt like a trend.
We have some bad habits.
They were exposed at Coventry. Enzo tends to realise his Italian birth right when the clock ticks down and attempts a deeper line to see a game out. Ipswich’s late equaliser was an example of when your midfield is too deep and, as tends to happen, the nearer you stand next to your own goal, luck or errors get amplified. Two deflections after some weak tackling and Ipswich had pulled off an escape. Mostly deserved, as they had dominated the final part of the game.
By the time the home side took the lead on Saturday, we were playing Ricardo in some hybrid centre-back/right-back role and James Justin as more of a right wing-back. We were understandably defensive in the second half with the red card but when Tom Cannon came off and the tactics changed, we went even deeper. Cesare Casadei was left with a job of playing left wing and centre midfield.
