Coventry City pre match chat.
Another rare 3pm kick off for us this week.
Mark Robins and his struggling Sky Blues come to Elland Road.
It's been a difficult start for Coventry with only 1 win, 2 draws and 3 defeats.
However for a crumb of comfort for them the underlying numbers tell you they are performing much better than the position suggests, one of the best in the league in fact in that area and they did enough to win all the games this season.
You get no points for xG and whatever but most managers will tell you over a season it will eventually click.
Historically we have a very good record vs Coventry, more than twice the wins vs defeats.
But we actually have 0 wins in our last 4, 2 draws 2 defeats, and last season as we know Coventry were one of the teams who we didn't beat, took 4 points from us.
Mark Robins was able to counter DF twice very effectively.
So despite the struggles in form the omens are concerning, a team who analysis wise those who put credence in that will tell you are doing well who showed last season they are able to shut us down.
That being said they have 0 wins in 4 in all competitions, xG and whatever is lovely for a manager to hide behind but it's results that count when all is said and done.
It probably will click for Coventry at some point, hopefully not on Saturday.
How will we approach the game? Last time out we had 70% possession to Coventry's 30%, they scored 2 we scored 1 which tells you all you need to know.
They sat in and smacked us on the break.
They are still more than capable of doing that, Ellis Simms and Haji Wright are big, strong but very mobile attackers capable of running in behind or competing physically.
In Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Ephron Mason-Clarke they have 2 wingers full of pace and energy as well.
And Jack Rudoni may not be a fancy self licking ice cream like previous incumbent Callum O'Hare but he is a very effective and intelligent midfielder.
So they have a lot of talented players and experienced manager.
Not much point talking about tactical changes because we know by now it won't happen aside from sitting back more maybe which DF likes to do sometimes (generally away from home though).
He isn't deviating from his "patient" style or his 2 holding mids or using more width or playing down the right side more etc.
He just won't, he's made that clear when questioned on it in the media.
So how about players changes?
Any people would like to see?
Would a draw be a good result? Or do we need to keep up the momentum and reach 2 points per game? Which we would do of course with a win.
Mark Robins and his struggling Sky Blues come to Elland Road.
It's been a difficult start for Coventry with only 1 win, 2 draws and 3 defeats.
However for a crumb of comfort for them the underlying numbers tell you they are performing much better than the position suggests, one of the best in the league in fact in that area and they did enough to win all the games this season.
You get no points for xG and whatever but most managers will tell you over a season it will eventually click.
Historically we have a very good record vs Coventry, more than twice the wins vs defeats.
But we actually have 0 wins in our last 4, 2 draws 2 defeats, and last season as we know Coventry were one of the teams who we didn't beat, took 4 points from us.
Mark Robins was able to counter DF twice very effectively.
So despite the struggles in form the omens are concerning, a team who analysis wise those who put credence in that will tell you are doing well who showed last season they are able to shut us down.
That being said they have 0 wins in 4 in all competitions, xG and whatever is lovely for a manager to hide behind but it's results that count when all is said and done.
It probably will click for Coventry at some point, hopefully not on Saturday.
How will we approach the game? Last time out we had 70% possession to Coventry's 30%, they scored 2 we scored 1 which tells you all you need to know.
They sat in and smacked us on the break.
They are still more than capable of doing that, Ellis Simms and Haji Wright are big, strong but very mobile attackers capable of running in behind or competing physically.
In Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Ephron Mason-Clarke they have 2 wingers full of pace and energy as well.
And Jack Rudoni may not be a fancy self licking ice cream like previous incumbent Callum O'Hare but he is a very effective and intelligent midfielder.
So they have a lot of talented players and experienced manager.
Not much point talking about tactical changes because we know by now it won't happen aside from sitting back more maybe which DF likes to do sometimes (generally away from home though).
He isn't deviating from his "patient" style or his 2 holding mids or using more width or playing down the right side more etc.
He just won't, he's made that clear when questioned on it in the media.
So how about players changes?
Any people would like to see?
Would a draw be a good result? Or do we need to keep up the momentum and reach 2 points per game? Which we would do of course with a win.