| Coventry City 1 v 2 Ipswich Town SkyBet Championship Tuesday, 30th April 2024 Kick-off 20:00 |  |
McKenna: Players Handling Big Three-Game Week Really Well Monday, 29th Apr 2024 12:58 Town visit Coventry City live on Sky on Tuesday night knowing that a victory would take them a point away from securing promotion back to the Premier League after 22 years away. Saturday’s topsy-turvy 3-3 draw at Hull City moved the Blues level on points with Leeds United, who remain second with a goal difference seven better than Town’s, but with Kieran McKenna’s men having two games to play to the Whites’ one, their final-day hosting of fourth-placed Southampton. Town need four points from their two matches, the visit to face the Sky Blues and then Saturday’s home fixture against all-but-relegated Huddersfield Town. The Terriers’ goal difference is 13 worse than Plymouth’s with the Pilgrims the only side whose current points total they could match by winning at Portman Road. Leaders Leicester claimed the Championship title via Monday night’s 3-0 win at Preston.  The Sky Blues are ninth in the Championship and are out of the running for the play-off places. They are without a win in five in all competitions and have won only one of their last seven, although that was a 2-1 home victory over Leeds at the start of this month. Tuesday’s match is their fourth in 10 days, following their hugely unfortunate on-penalties FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester United at Wembley, the game having ended 3-3 after extra-time, a 3-2 home loss to Hull and Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Blackburn Rovers. Tuesday’s match was scheduled to be played on April 20th but was moved due to the semi-final. Coventry’s home form of won nine, drawn eight and lost four is the ninth best in the division and their 34 goals at the Coventry Building Society Arena is the 10th highest, while only five sides have conceded fewer than their total of 23 on their own turf. Town boss Kieran McKenna, whose side is without a win in four, drawing the last three, their second-longest winless run of the season, despite playing well in most of those games, is aware that the Sky Blues have had a busy few weeks and have a few injuries, but says Mark Robins’s team, who were also beaten on penalties by Luton in last year’s play-off final, are a very decent outfit. “Of course they have,” he said, speaking after Saturday’s match. “They’re an excellent side, no doubt about it, they’ve shown that in the cup competitions and in their form in the league, especially probably after the first quarter of the season. “I’m sure they’re going to want to finish off strongly. They’ve got some players unavailable but they’ve got a deep squad and lots and lots of good players and I’m sure they’ll be motivated to do well on Tuesday. “We’ll prepare as well as we can and make sure we’re ready to again perform as we want to do.”
McKenna smiled when asked whether there are any similarities with last season’s rearranged late away trip to Barnsley, a 3-0 victory which all but sealed the Blues’ promotion from League One. “There are lots of parallels you can take, to be honest, in the season, in the points, in the two aways before we go back home, all of those things,” he said. “The reality is that the games are harder. Last year was hard but these games are harder, so I’m not sure we’re going to have too many 3-0s or 6-0s. “But so many of the group have been through this experience with a big three-game week to try and achieve a big goal and they’ve handled it really well before and I think they’re handling it really well at the moment. “It doesn’t mean that the games are going to be easier or that we’re going to walk any games but it means we’ll try and keep performing as we have been and as we want to and I don’t think we were far away from that on Friday night.” McKenna believes the experience gained during last season’s League One run-in, in which they Blues won 13 out of 14 to secure promotion via a 6-0 hammering of Exeter City in their penultimate fixture, has helped his team in the latter stages of this season. “I think it has,” he reflected. “I can say from what I see, I feel around the group, from what I’m seeing on the pitch, I don’t see us playing with tension, which is really important at this stage of the season. I see us playing with bravery, with confidence, with great intensity still and that’s really important. “We’re going to get the points that we get at the end of the season. We’ve already got 90, we can’t worry about any other teams, we can just, as we said we would do, go absolutely all in for 46 games and see where we’re at in the end.” McKenna says Coventry having nothing left in their season shouldn’t come into consideration going into Tuesday’s match. “There’s no point in thinking about it,” he said. “Whether they make changes or not, will they have players back in who have missed the last couple, it can’t come into our thought process too much to spend too much energy on that. “We know they’re a very good side, we’ll know they’ll be motivated to finish off the season on a high at home against a team who are competing at the top end of the division and we certainly know that they’re going to try and make it hard for us. “We’ll be preparing for a really good Coventry side and that’s certainly what we expect.” McKenna may make one or two tweaks to his team for the second of three games in the biggest week in the club’s history since 2014/15. Vaclav Hladky will be in goal with Axel Tuanzebe likely to be at right-back and Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess the centre-halves. Leif Davis was limping badly after Saturday’s game at the MKM Stadium, according to McKenna, after rolling his ankle and the former Leeds man appears likely to have to sit the game out. McKenna could bring in Cameron Humphreys in his secondary role at left-back but will probably start Harry Clarke, who took over from Davis at Hull. In central midfield, skipper Sam Morsy could be partnered by Jack Taylor with Massimo Luongo often rested when matches are coming thick and fast. In the three ahead of them, Conor Chaplin looks set to be in the middle with McKenna having decisions to make in the wide roles. Wes Burns started on Saturday but may not be considered ready to play two games in four days following his month out with a hamstring injury. Omari Hutchinson could be moved to the right having started on the left against the Tigers, with Burns playing a part from the bench in the second half. Nathan Broadhead missed out with a minor knock on Saturday and may again not be considered able to start, so Jeremy Sarmiento could come back into the XI. Like Burns, George Hirst came into the side on Saturday, after an even longer absence, the striker having been out since undergoing a hamstring operation after picking up an injury in the Boxing Day game against his old club Leicester. Hirst may also not be thought ready for two matches in such quick succession and that could see Kieffer Moore make his first start since the home draw with Watford. Coventry will be without centre-half Liam Kitching, who was shown his third red card of the season, a new Sky Blues record, at Blackburn at the weekend. Midfielder Ben Sheaf is also likely to miss out with a muscle injury, while another central defender, Luis Binks, seems unlikely to be involved having been absent at the weekend with an achilles issue. That leaves the Sky Blues with Bobby Thomas and Joel Laibeaudiere, who came off the bench at the weekend following a calf injury, as the only fit centre-halves, although left-back Jake Bidwell could fill in if needed. Midfielder Victor Torp suffered a stomach strain in the FA Cup semi-final and has missed the last three games, while forward Fabio Tavares suffered a knock in the same match and has been ruled out for the season. Town have a good record against Coventry over the years, winning 39 games (37 in the league), losing 24 times (21) and with 25 matches (23) ending in draws. The Sky Blues have won only five of the last 29 games between the clubs. The Blues’ most recent victory away against the Sky Blues was on their last visit to the Coventry Building Society Arena, then known as the Ricoh Arena, a 3-2 success in February 2012 with Town’s subsequent away games against Coventry having been played at Birmingham’s St Andrew’s. In December at Portman Road, first-half goals from Hirst and Burns were enough to see second-placed Town to a 2-1 victory over the Sky Blues, who missed a second-half penalty before a Brandon Williams own goal saw them pull one back deep in injury time. Hirst gave the Blues the lead in the sixth minute, firing home after being brilliantly played through by Broadhead, then Burns scored a superb outside-of-the-boot effort on 39, which was named the EFL Goal of the Season earlier this month. Matt Godden smashed his spot-kick against the bar on 73 after Clarke had fouled Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, but the visitors netted a late consolation when Williams nodded past his own keeper under pressure from Ellis Simms, although it probably should have been ruled out for a push. In a League One fixture at the Sky Blues’ temporary home at St Andrew’s in December 2019, the second of three games in 10 days between the clubs along with two FA Cup ties, Will Keane gave Town the lead in the 31st minute and Maxime Biamou levelled for Coventry on 56. Six days prior to that, the teams had met in the initial FA Cup tie, also at St Andrew’s, Keane again having given Town the lead before Callum O’Hare equalised deep in injury time. The Sky Blues, who were on their way to claiming the Covid-curtailed League One title that season, won the replay at Portman Road 2-1. Blues forward Chaplin with with the Sky Blues during the 2018/19 season, the first half on loan from Portsmouth before the switch was made permanent in the January. Chaplin netted eight goals in 22 starts and nine sub appearances before moving on to Barnsley that summer. Town were keen to sign Coventry striker Simms from Everton in the summer before he completed his switch to the Sky Blues. Tuesday’s referee is James Bell from Sheffield, who has shown 107 yellow cards and five red in 25 games so far this season. Bell was the official set to referee last April’s game at home to Charlton before being replaced after it emerged he is a supporter of Sheffield Wednesday, then vying with the Blues for promotion from League One. Since then, he took charge of the 0-0 draw at Stoke City on New Year’s Day in which he red-carded Potters’ midfielder Jordan Thompson for a second bookable offence, waving an imaginary yellow card, and booked Morsy, Clarke and one other member of the home team. Bell was also in charge of the disastrous 2-0 FA Cup defeat at Barrow in December 2021, the final game before McKenna’s appointment as manager was announced, in which he booked only Morsy, who had come on as a half-time sub. Bell’s only previous Town match before that was the 3-0 defeat at Northampton in April of the same year in which he booked only one home player. Squad from: Hladky, Walton, Clarke, Davis, Humphreys, Tuanzebe, Woolfenden, Burgess, Edmundson, Morsy (c), Luongo, Taylor, Travis, Ball, Chaplin, Harness, Burns, Jackson, Aluko, Hutchinson, Sarmiento, Broadhead, Moore, Hirst, Al-Hamadi.
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