Hope is an assassin: the Mighty vs Coventry City

I'm pretending there's no game on today. Might casually pop down to that retro games place later next to the ground later and let myself be shocked that we're playing. I don't want to think about football today. I want Tuesday to live on in my head a little bit longer. 

Same again with the teams. That bodes well. I think. I don't know. What choice have we got to be honest? That set up worked against QPR and the last time anything worked was against this lot at their place and then it was all about Gaz. We could ask him to hop about I guess, but that might be pushing it. He might be the top surprisingly skillfull big lad up front of a generation (reader, don't even think about questioning this, now is not the time) but legs are quite important to footballers. 

That's the sort of top level analysis you're here for... Anyway, the point is, we've not got a lot of options and the formation precludes playing some of the players so the line up is the line up is the line up

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The first ten minutes are great. The ground is a proper cauldron. Two drums, two sets of fans with songs and two teams who are willing to attack. We swap chants and shots. There's something very pleasingly old fashioned about it all.

CJ nearly recreates a key moment from Tuesday, charging down their full back, robbing him, cutting inside and then slamming the ball just wide of the near post. Jerry holds his arms out in despair in the gestural equivalent of 'fucks sake CJ!'

Someone is down in a heap. It's Jud. If I had to pick a player of the season, he's pretty close. There's not many candidates but he's been as good as anyone. Obviously that means he now is being shepherded off with concussion. We've got no CB on the bench because we don't have any more centre backs. Someone give him a pen and contract whilst he's dizzy.

Connolly gets punched. It looks worse than what Gaz got sent off for. The ref gives a yellow. You either saw it or you didn't and if you saw it it's a red. The ref is awful. He's never up with play and it's as if the EFL have sent someone especially inept to compensate for the anomaly that was Tuesday's ref who, for once, didn't have a pathological hatred of tangerine.

Their first goal. They work it down the left. They push it across. We appear to just let them line up a shot having not bothered with tracking the late runner at the edge of the box or chucking ourselves at it or owt. "After you sir, try your luck!" It flies in. For fucks sake. Our defence might as well shake the opponents hands and say "Jolly good show" sometimes. 

Rogers gallops away and is chopped down. To be honest, I'm not sure if he is or not, but it's a penalty. Jerry makes no mistake and we're level. We've deserved that. We're doing ok if you take away the calamitous defending for their goal.

Then a ball looping and falling behind their defence. Rogers again, he gets the right side, he breaks, he glances, he runs again and he delivers a perfect ball. The keeper is nowhere, there's Jerry, the goal a gaping gap and I can see the ball going in before it does. Everything is tensed ready for the release of delight when Jerry is sent flying. There's no contact with the ball, no doubt, no mitigating factor. It's absolutely nailed on. Play on. For fucks sake.

I can barely be bothered writing anymore. We concede a stupid goal just before half time where we make defending a corner look like a bad rehearsal of a primary school dance routine where everyone has practiced to a different song. We've done ok if you take away the calamitous defending for both goals.

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Hmm. Not out of this. Let's not concede just after halftime

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We concede another almost immediately by literally passing it to them to have another go in the box. We've done ok if you take away the calamitous defending for all three goals.

Then the glory of another goal conceded... one of our defenders runs around a pass from his partner as if unaware of the presence of their forward who nabs it with no real effort required. That adds a final self sabotage cherry to the disasterous icing on the cake of calamity. We're not doing ok any more aside from that to be honest. We look shite now.

The subs we make are pointless. Patino isn't great defensively but he gave us some calm in midfield when on the ball and once he's gone off we make nothing. Again we play Carey where he doesn't really belong. Bowler gets left on the bench because we don't change shape, despite them looking susceptible to a player who can run at them. Keshi cutting in from the left was outrageously good last year but we leave CJ on to mistime jumps and twang crosses 10 foot over little Jerry's head and put the Kesh in the middle instead. 

Dougall was horrible but he's probably the 5th choice to do the role he played. Oheeoh Super Kenny Dougall. He often gives the ball away. 1.2.3.4. He wasn't the only one.

We were ragged. The great hope Poveda used his ten minutes to run into people and fall over. Most people went home. Coventry made a lot of noise. Keshi looked at least able to control a football so there's that. 

We didn't really deserve to go 3-1 down, but once we had, we tried our best to make the scoreline look correct and even managed to add some gloss to it for Coventry.

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In the end, this game was about 3 things.

1) Cov were good. They got at our wingbacks and therefore they (particularly Lyons) had far less impact.

2) The key moments of decision making also went for Cov. The ref could have sent two players off and given us another penalty. 

3) The tempo Cov played at flustered us and though we actually matched them for a good while in terms of our ability to get forward, we just couldn't stop making stupid mistakes and not having a player of genuine disruptive ability in the midfield once again cost us dear. Lose the middle of the park and you're up against it as we have been in far too many games. The more pressured you are, the more mistakes you make. 

To be honest, I hope Coventry go up. They're a good team that's been built over time and a set of fans who've been through the mill. In the longer term, we should take encouragement that we've poached their recruitment team. That's not much for the immediate though. 

We go into the next game (can't remember who that's against...) potentially with 1 out and out centre back, no defensive midfielder (because the nearest thing we've got to a fit one will likely be in defence) and one striker...

What a season.

Deep breaths everyone. We don't give up. 

Onward! 

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