Highlights from BBC Sport website - Leeds 1- 1 Coventry UK users only, and it probably won't work great on mobiles I'm afraid. Soz to pretty much everyone who'll read this on a mobile, and also my one reader from Vietnam.  Edit 01/11/11: Times up. BBC videos are only available for a short while, meaning this has since been removed.

It's fair to say the 90 minute mark has been our cue to fanny things up just lately. I'll admit that I didn't hold out much hope for us coming into this game, given our dismal away record. I'd also had a little look over the squads beforehand, and it made for scary reading. It really emphasises the difference in options when you see players like Mikael Forssell and Luciano Becchio sat on the bench twiddling their thumbs, then look back at ours and have Sky Blue Sam waving back at you.

Not to worry. We started off brightly enough, and as I'd given Sammy Clingan a talking up for a piece I'd done for a Leeds blog the night before, it was nice to see him having an early shot to confirm my keenness about his right boot. We then fell under an increasing amount of pressure, and once O'Dea had knocked them in front, the other away losses began to play on my mind. If it wasn't for Joe Murphy, who I'll admit he and I haven't seen eye-to-eye with so far this season (a metaphor in every sense; we've clearly never met), Leeds would have been home and dry long before we were able to pile on the pressure in the final period of the game.

It made me laugh, really. After the Forest game, I whinged about how little time we usually spend in the opponents half in the final stages of games, whether we're winning, losing or drawing. Away at Leeds you'd expect this to be the case even more so. They sat back surprisingly deep however, and really gave us the opportunity to have a go at them. And have a go we did.

We didn't create any clear cut chances, but it was pleasing to see us forcing the issue and putting them under genuine pressure for what seemed like a prolonged period of play (by our standards). Obviously we'd love it to be like that for 90 minutes. But this isn't World Cup '98 on the N64, and none of our players have that works-everytime rollover trick in their locker. Feel free to ignore my football game analogies by the way. They're essentially the same, just with a different game each time. Next week, I explain why David Bell belongs in World Cup Italia '90.

Sorry, I digress.

We really stuck at it, and were a testament to the team spirit that Thorn is undoubtedly bringing to our tiny group of players. I'm sure we all felt that time had ran out for us when Rachubka's unexpected and pretty inexplicable error left Woody with the opportunity to pinch the draw for us, which he duly converted.

Cue delirium and a mass invasion of regular personal space.

Last minute goals; I love you.

Rumours about Sammy Clingan being pursued by Leeds do not make me happy.

Having already lost King, Westwood and Gunnarsson, along with the departure of a few slightly-less important names, our squad is looking mighty slim. Times are hard, and none of us are expecting to have a Football Manager-style squad to choose from next season, but Sammy Clingan controlling the middle is the difference between a solid Coventry City midfield, and down-right shoddy one.

The annoying thing here is that we’re once again left in a situation where a player of genuine monetary value is entering the final year of his contract, so can pretty much do what he likes. Having to part company with three contract renegades this summer for sod all was bad enough, but it’s not something any club can afford to get used to.

Unfortunately – and here is where I state even more of the bleeding obvious - while this financial instability looms over us, persuading good players to extend their stay here is going to prove incredibly tricky.

So what can we do? Putting finance and any other premature judgements based on Saturday’s game aside, I do think Andy Thorn has it in him to do well for us. I have confidence in him because I think that his approach is the right approach. He’s not a miracle worker though. Lose a couple more names from the squad, whoever they may be, and we’re relying on the injury and suspension Gods to smile kindly on us (and let’s face it, that ain’t gonna happen).

Lose Sammy Clingan, and we’re struggling regardless.

Options:

a) Sell Sammy, get a bit of money into the club and somehow hope we find a suitable replacement;
b) Keep Sammy, and let him go on a free come the end of the season. No money, but we keep a quality player for a year;
c) Persuade Sammy to sign a contract extension so we gain a bit more control on the situation;

Or

d) Find out that Hoffman’s men are well rich, let them buy the club, become brilliant, and have all our good players desperate to sign extensions, whilst we fly up the league on the back of Andy Thorn’s refreshing brand of football and ability to make everyone around him feel wonderful, yet maintain an underlying thirst to succeed.

I choose D, obviously. Unfortunately, I have a sneaky feeling if he doesn't go now, it’ll end up being secret option E: Sammy leaves for pittance in the January window - a rather annoying middle ground.

We wait in anticipation.

In other news, the notion of Clive Platt possibly going to Premiership Norwich made me laugh.

When will we learn! All the hype surrounding this fixture should have served as a warning that it probably wouldn't go to plan. 

Let's be fair, it wasn't your standard Coventry City bottle-fest. There was loads to grumble about, and frustration a-plenty, but for the 17 million extra fans who turned up for this game, they might just have left with the feeling that this side is a little different to the ones they've known recently.

Letting Leeds take the lead so early on rattled us. For such a big game, we really were too tentative, and while there were periods in the first half when the majority of the play was spent attacking, we seemed sluggish around the penalty area. Too many attacks just petered out. 

2-0 at half-time flattered them, although you can't take anything away from the finish that doubled their lead. Put the first goal down to poor defensive positioning all you like, but Snodgrass pulled one out of the bag for the 2nd. The clapping plonkers round our way should get a bloody grip though. I'll quietly acknowledge a good goal when I see one, but I do this in my head. Don't try and show yourself to be an 'appreciator of good football' with inane clapping.

In the 2nd half, you couldn't fault our endeavour - you rarely have the feeling we're completely out of games nowadays. We came out and very quickly got a goal to get the crowd believing again. The problem was, Leeds had an unfortunate knack of kicking us in the teeth at the worst possible moments. Opening 5 mins, last 5 mins of the 1st half, and then once we'd wrestled ourselves back into the match, they dealt us another blow. 

I like Richard Keogh. He's got a fantastic engine, and on occasion looks a very good player. He had a stinker today though. Going forward, his legs appeared to enjoy taking him down cul-de-sacs (I blame his legs, because I'm not sure he had any conscious control in what they did). But it was defensively when he looked most shaky. He was at fault in all kinds of ways for the penalty. And just in case you were wondering, it was a penalty.

The colossal Ben Turner immediately dragged us back into a game though, and made himself top scorer in the process. He's become a man-mountain this season, and his determination to win is awesome. You only have to look at the effort he put in to clear Becchio's shot off the line. He smashed into the posts, but it was worth it.

The most frustrating thing is, that was about it. After Turner's goal, we essentially had 30 minutes to grab ourselves an equaliser, but we barely created a chance. Yes, teritorially we pressed them hard, and threw the ball into good areas. But we lacked any real method, and it struck me that we sent balls into places in the hope that something good would come of it, rather than with any real purpose. That's understandable when you've only got a few minutes left, but there was more than enough time to pull ourselves level, and we just stuck rigidly to our long ball guns. That was disappointing.

I was pleased to see the majority of fans more focused on the game than applauding the 28,000 attendance. That always embarrasses me. Internally, we all know that's brilliant for us, but there's an element of keeping up appearances which many of our fans don't seem to be aware of. 

If we're serious about finally getting our act together and getting out of this league, we need to shed the culture of acceptance and "happy to be trying hard". We're a bloody big club, with a bloody good squad, bloody good manager and even better bloody stadium than anyone else in the league. Derby, Leicester, Norwich will get 25,000 and not bat an eyelid. Today's attendance was great to see, but also a strong reminder not only of what we're capable of, what should eventually be the norm.

There's no point over-analysing the game itself too much. We put a lot of effort in, and on reflection it was probably one of our best performances of the season in terms of spirit. Admittedly, I didn't think that as I was walking away from the ground, but after a couple of hours grumbling, the bottom line is, the team has improved massively. We've got to stick with it.

Bouncing-back is important now, but there's enough character there to do so.

P.S. Noel Whelan can piss off.

Before the Sheffield Utd game, this chap from ccfc.co.uk was on the wander, pestering people to give their predictions for the Leeds match. This threw me a little, given we'd not even started the match we were at, but I didn't let this stop me getting involved.

My contribution (influenced heavily by the Ladbrokes board 10 feet from me) was as followed:

"Err, 2 - 0, Coventry, err, Jutkiewicz first goal".

Then, out of nowhere, I was asked if England will succeed in their World Cup 2018 bid. My well-considered response/noise was:

"Yeahhhhhh".

Brilliant. I won't expect a call from Parky just yet.

Luckily, only those with Sky Blues Player can see it in all its glory. For the rest of us, we'll have to make do with this little snippet.

City fans on Leeds clash 

I will only be eating it if Beckford comes the other way, mind.

That's right, as the rumour mill predicted last night, Doyle has moved to Leeds on a season long loan. We've now got a tiny squad, which has been made even smaller. Surely Coleman has to have someone else lined up?

I've thought for a while that it is time for him to move on. It's become obvious that while he tries, and gives us a useful backup, Doyle has become synonymous with the under-achieving mentality of the club. Not his fault, but we needed to part ways.

With the lack of incoming players and the fact that we lost a couple of our best chaps, I couldn't see him being let go before the start of the season though. Our cover for midfield now stands at Isaac Osbourne and Adam Walker, so it's getting pretty desperate I'd say.

Wonder what surprises we can expect before Sunday....