A pun? In my blog? No way, man. It weren't me.

Anyway, I noted in my last post about how poor Ben Turner was against Watford. He had a git of a game. He was that poor, I felt he might be dropped.

So in typical Ben Turner fashion, he got the nod against Derby on Saturday and played an absolute blinder. Ben, you brilliant bastard.

Looking back at it, he was about the only player to have a decent game throughout. I've no immediate problem with that because as a team we showed discipline and organisation, and we bloody well won. I think Aidy knows that there was also a lot we did poorly though. He's no fool.

As stupid an excuse as it sounds, it didn't seem like our players coped all that well with the combination of an early start and slick pitch. Throughout the game they seemed slow to react to situations and to make decisions, while even the easiest of balls they managed to make a pig's ear of controlling. All, I must add, except Doyle, who was uncharacteristically solid in doing the basics.

I know, I was shocked too.

I have to say, even though Derby were passing the arse out of the ball, I was never too worried about them breaking us down. They had a few moments in the game, but there was never really anyone in the box to finish things off for them. Kris Commons still impresses me every time I see him, mind.

Our first goal came out of nowhere as everyone was still waffling on about how unlucky Carsley was to have his effort cleared off the line. In the resulting attack, McSheffrey showed us a glimpse of what he used to do back in 2005. Bloody gorgeous quick feet to draw in Leacock's tackle, leaving a penalty decision even Jorge Larrionda couldn't miss. Lukeyjukey walloped it away once again. Unfortunately that was to be Jutkiewicz's final contribution of note, as he pulled something and had to be replaced by big Clive Platini.

Clive was top again, and the good thing about having him in the team is you know that if you're not playing well and you're lacking the confidence and the touch to play flowing football, you can just tonk it up to him - he'll do something with it.

We were out very early for the second half and this achieved bugger all as we duly conceded an early equaliser. I can't really attribute blame to any single person, it was just slack defending all round.

It was the second half where Ben Turner came into his own. Marshalling the defence in a way that someone his size should. I watched the game back on Sky+ and it seemed it wasn't just home bias that noticed his performance - Ian Darke was particularly keen on him. And rightly so.

One thing that he didn't get much credit for was the quality of the winning header. It looked far from a simple finish from where I was. Either way, it was great to see him cap a great game with his first goal.

Not quite as great finding myself on tele when I watched it back later on that day. It wasn't quite a close-up of Fred Collins proportions, but after 15 years of going to watch them, it was nice to finally get my blurry mug on screen in some form.

Late winners are always the best.

It's a little late, but I have a selection of words to say about Coventry's first week of the season.

We're only 13 days in, but all in all, it ain't been too bad. First game was spot on. The League cup, nobody could give a fig about so we all ignored it. And Watford, we're all agreed we were diabolical, but the ending to that match was exactly why I send myself off to watch this football team. When things like that occur, it renders everything magnificent.

Of course, there are always gripes (some trivial) :

• I still can't see where Doyle has gained this reputation as a "hard-man" from. 
• Wins breed wins, so we could have done with smashing Morecambe.
• Why does Ben Turner make it so bloody hard to trust him?
• Drunken fat fools talking utter bullshine during the Watford game, then leaving 10 mins before the end. Some people.
• "You don't know what you're doing".... 3 games in, and people are already shouting this to Aidy. Have they run mad? Weren't keen.

But to be frank, I don't really care about the gripes at the moment. We've started well again, let's see if we've finally got a manager who can sustain it beyond August. 

And even if he can't, I've seen enough already to show me that he knows what he's talking about. He's all about winning, and that ticks a rather large box with me.

Positives so far..

Nathan Cameron - There's no way he's 18.
Richard Keogh - Like a maniac in the playground and I love him for it.
Freddy Eastwood - Boothy knows how to get best out of him.
Clive Platt - If I slagged Clive beforehand, I take it all back now. That point against Watford was his.
The fightback vs. Watford - You become so accustomed to us rolling over and accepting defeat, you don't expect things like that to happen. I'm going to Vicarage Road every year.

Negatives (only where there's a genuine concern ... )

Poor performance vs. Watford - The comeback was great, everything else about the game (until big Clive came on) was a pile of Mark Bright. We can't drop to those levels again.
Turner's performance vs. Watford. I really want this guy to be good, but he really struggles to string back-to-back performances together. I'd keep an eye on him.

Well, those are my thoughts so far. Pretty standard start for us. 

I shouldn't say it, given how the team reacted everytime I wrote it last year... but let's keep it going.

As promised, my little piece is now up on The Two Unfortunates. They've done a cracking job tracking down fans from every Football League club, each with enough time on their hands to pull something together, so bravo to them.

As ever, I've predicted that we'll make the play-offs...

ergo, we probably shan't.

Well, after a relaxing break watching England bugger up the World Cup, the time has now come for me to return to my day job; saying the occasional thing about Coventry City.

I've pulled together a little season-preview wotsit for my new friends at The Two Unfortunates, so I'll let you see that once that goes up. They run a Football League blog, and they don't do it by halves. It's bloody comprehensive, so have a looksy.

In the meantime, I'll compose myself, gather my thoughts, and take some notes on tomorrows game against West Brom.

Looking forward to hearing everyone's attempt at pronouncing Lukas Jutkiewicz.

Sky Sports - Tough on Cookie

"In his spell in charge Coleman recouped more than £5million in transfer fees and spent just £650,000 bringing players to the club".

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11710_6132696,00.html

I've read that sentence a few times now and really don't understand what they base it on, or what they're actually trying to say. They seem to be saying that he's only spent £650,000 on players since he arrived. But at a quick count we spent money on the following players during his tenure:

1. Gunnarsson
2. Westwood
3. Eastwood 
4. Bell 
5. McPake 
6. Clingan
7. McIndoe 
8. Cranie 
9. Wood 
10. Baker
11. Hussey 
12. Deegan 

So, they mean one of the following:

1) They're talking about additional expenditure on top of the £5 million he recouped.. which basically means the list of players above cost £5.65 Million in total. Blows the argument that Coleman didn't receive any money out of the water, doesn't it.

or 2) that those 12 players cost £650,000 in total, which is just plain mental.

If I'm acting like a horrendous boob and have missed something obvious, someone please pipe up and enlighten me.

As far as I can see, they're just making stuff up.

So, the inevitable has happened.

http://www.ccfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10269~2042820,00.html

It's always a shame when someone loses their job, but the way things were going, change seemed to be the best solution.

My stance has been since the end of last season "buck your ideas up, else you'll end up being sacked". Not that I'm in any position to issue advice/warnings to professional football managers (or that he'd even see it), but in the make-believe world I've created for myself whereby anything I put on here is important, that's been the angle I've taken.

That might seem harsh to some, but my first choice scenario was always for improvement. If you under-perform in any job, your position will come under scrutiny - that's only fair. Mid to lower bottom half couldn't be accepted again, not with the time and money that has been spent. If he was able to guide us to a respectable top 12 finish this season, he'd still be in a job now.

Allowing his team to throw away the season in the space of 6 weeks was the final straw, and questions had to be asked of his impact in the role.

I've read lots of comments on forums saying "it's not the manager's fault". If the long-term performance of the team can't be associated with the manager's performance, is there even any point in having one? What is the purpose of his role and why is so much importance placed on it?

He has to have some influence on the team, and after 2 and a bit years, it was time to raise our hands and admit it's just not worked. Our league performance shows that.

I'll be writing a review of the season in the next day or so, but I just wanted to jot down a few of my thoughts prior to that, given today's news.

P.S. The last person I want as his replacement is another sacked/failed manager on the downwards spiral. We need someone on the up, with a winning mentality (one of the only clichés that makes any sense).

Reid, Adams, Dowie.. all had experience of taking teams up.. but were coming off more recent experience of taking teams down too. Let's reverse that trend. Not all managers have to be "big-names", just look at the managers to have taken teams from League 1 to the Prem in recent times. Momentum is the key.

Due to moving house and generally not wanting to jinx anything, I've spent the last month watching and keeping schtum about Coventry, in the hope that things might have finally changed for us.

In case you've missed it (it happened so quickly, you may have), we've managed to throw a potentially good season away once again.

16th March 2010. We found ourselves 2 points off the play-offs, playing at home, against the team in 6th. It was all set up for us to finally make that step up.

What's happened?

Another capitulation. 

For one reason or another, our players and manager just couldn't seem to get up for the games when they really mattered. It's always "nearly" good enough. Apparently because we got so close to the play-offs, this now constitutes a successful season?

Not sure how. 

This happened last year. In fact, my tongue-in-cheek prediction for this season was that we would "go on a good run in February, leading us to all to believe we're going to make the play-offs... only for us to finish 17th".

No team should be so predictably feeble.

We've got 4 games left now, but the season has already gone and the players know it. Last season we finished with 54 points in what was a generally dire season. That wasn't good enough.

We're going to struggle to make that tally this year. All I can see is how we've managed to throw away a hard-earned period of good form with a flurry of abject performances again. So what do you choose to judge? The good form, or the capitulation?

We all buy our season tickets in the belief that our club will try for the entire season. For 3 years in a row, that hasn't happened.

It's all well and good saying you're being a good fan by giving them all the time in the world and showing constant acceptance of whatever tripe they give us, but is that really going to do any good?

Just look at the Scunthorpe game in December - finally the manager and the players came under widespread pressure, and amazingly won 3 games in a row. Coincidence? I don't think so. If you keep accepting rubbish, that's eventually all you're ever going to get. It's only when we question things that we ever see any change for the better. All we want is a team that we can trust to perform, regardless of the occasion.

The way we've folded this season - is that acceptable? It ruddy well isn't.
It's just embarrassing.

If you can't be bothered to stay up late to watch Ray on Late Kick Off tonight (BBC1 11.35pm), you can watch it here..

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=314597566265&ref=nf

To summarise - he's careful with money, Westwood is probably going to go in the summer and he now believes we're beginning to see the fruits of our labour.

Nothing particularly new to Coventry fans thanks to Ian Winter's linear questioning (the finances), but still worth a peek.

21 days into the month, I felt compelled to comment on February so far. It's been alright hasn't it?

Since the Blackpool game (when we were all questioning Coleman's motives and ambition) there's been a noticeable shift in attitude around the club. While Coleman spent January talking down our prospects, the talk this month has changed and there's far more determination and belief about our performances too. 

The interviews going into the Forest game were particularly refreshing, as they were all I'd been hoping to hear the entire season. Oggy obviously realised that cowering and pandering to teams in pre-match interviews was only giving them the advantage, so came out with some fighting talk. Nothing crazy, but just enough to make everyone realise that we weren't going into it playing for a draw for once. And the players appeared to respond, because we ended up putting in our best performance of the season. In the words of Richie Bernau, "marvellous stuff there".

And with 10 points out of a possible 15, it seems we've now told losses and draws to bugger off (in the main) and realised that wins are far better. 

Crystal Palace 0-1 Coventry 
Newcastle 4-1 Coventry
Coventry 1-0 QPR
Coventry 1-0 Nottm Forest
Bristol City 1-1 Coventry

The most telling thing recently is that while we've continued to take the lead in every single game, we're now managing to show some steel and get the points from the games too. Here's a stat; we've taken the lead 19 times in the league this season.. Newcastle have taken the lead in 20. To me, that can't be just a fluke. I'm just glad that we're now starting to believe in ourselves and realising that with some organisation and positive tactics, we can actually beat these teams.

Just to reiterate the relative unimportance of draws. You see how we lost to Newcastle (as everyone is), then beat Palace a few days later, having gone for the win in both games? How many people would have taken 2 draws before those? We all would have wouldn't we, mainly cos it sounds good - 2 games unbeaten blah blah.

Fact it though, it's all about 3 points in the Championship. Ipswich will tell you that. They've lost far less than anyone else in the bottom half, but they're still fighting a relegation battle, simply because they've drawn too many.

A loss followed by a win will always leave you better off. 3 points plays 2.

I'm just mighty glad to see the attitude has changed recently, and unsurprisingly this has coincided with decent a climb up the table.

We just need to guard against complacency though, that's our biggest enemy. We had that great run last February, and we all started talking about play-offs. But that soon fell apart, so we need to make sure we maintain the same levels of positivity, concentration, determination and effort so we can finish the season on a high.

We're playing the bottom 3 in the next 3 games - we couldn't ask for a better opportunity to really thrust ourselves up the league even more. 

I know we're often scared to talk about winning runs because we've been burnt before, but I think it's time the players and manager forgot about guarding against failure and go for it. Like we always say, if they at least give it a go, we'll be happy with that. What we don't want is negative interviews, tactics and targets of mediocre league finishes. They simply don't work for us.

We're not the finished article but you don't take the lead in 19 games (21 if you count the cups) if you're a bad team, do you?

Has been confirmed on the official website.

Best completes Magpies move

I doubt we'll get to hear the details of what we've received for him. You have to remember we paid a decent sum to bring him to club, and he's become a full Republic of Ireland international in that time.

A tribunal would have seen us get far more than the £500k that it's rumoured we received for him. I'm sure of that.

We've lost him on deadline day, with no sign of a replacement coming in and seemingly minimal compensation.

And on a separate note, his farewell to the club turned out to be a crescendo of undeserved boos, even given how vital he's been for us this year.

I reckon we're going to miss him.