Coventry City 1-1 Leicester City

Coventry were outplayed in this poor M69 derby where both teams were sloppy throughout. The atmosphere of the home crowd from the Ricoh Arena frankly kept the game interesting as the on pitch play wasn't that of quality.

The visitors were first to create anything when they won a corner on 4 minutes but nothing came of it. Coventry looked nervous from the start and took time to settle into the match. The inexperienced defence looked shaky which allowed Leicester to play with more freedom and space out wide. Coventry's first chance came on 17 minutes but it was a half chance from Jutkiewicz but the shot came to nothing. The visitors first chance came on 37 minutes when Andy King's weak header was comfortably taken by keeper Westwood.

Then out of the blue and against the run of play, substitute Michael McIndoe played a ball onto the head of new boy Clive Platt who's header found the net for his first goal in a Sky Blue shirt and put Coventry 1-0. This came 5 minutes before halftime and thats how it stayed until the second half.

The visitors dominated play from the second half whistle and Waghorn came close but Westwood managed to punch the ball away. Then 10 minutes later, Waghorn hit the woodwork with his header and it stayed 1-0. Coventry's defence were still shaky and allowing far too much time on the ball for the Leicester attack but at this point they couldn't make anything from it.

But on  76 minutes, they finally got a deserved equaliser. Andy King went into the box and just when youngster Jordan Clarke thought he had the better of King, he lost the ball and King cleverly chipped the ball of the helpless Westwood for 1-1. Clarke's inexperienced cost him but he shouldn't have been picked for the starting XI in such a huge derby match. Leicester had a late shot which was saved and this was the last major event of the match in a lacklusture affair but a hard worked point for both sides none the less.

Watford 2-2 Coventry City

This was a tale of 4 goals, 88 minutes of misery but 2 minutes of extacy as the mighty Sky Blues came back to snatch the unlikeliness and most dramatic of draws in this Championship fixture at Vicarage Road. Watford was jam packed full of Coventry fans making their way to the match on this damp summer's afternoon and the poor weather summed up Coventry's first half performance. We were very slow out of the blocks but the soggy outfield didn't help proceedings where it was difficult to pass the ball around and all the teams could do was play 'hoof ball' and 'head tennis'. This meant that it was hard for any team to take complete control of the game and there was a lot of aerial play by the teams.

The first half was also a story of very few chances from either side and it wasn't until the 15th minute when Watford had their first sniff at goal when 6 goal Danny Graham broke free of the City defence only to collide with 2nd choice emergency loan keeper Iain Turner, leaving him concussed and forcing him off the pitch to be replaced by 18 year old Micheal Quirke. This sensed tension from the City camp with a youngster making his debut due to further injuries. Quirke made a good acrobatic save half way through the first half from a shot off of Sordell but an error on the stoke of half time allowed Will Buckley to header across goal and make it 1-0 to the home side. You could hardly blame the young keeper who wouldn't have even been expected to be on the bench due to an injury to 1st choice keeper and match saver Westwood.

The second half started off much better from the visitors with fans favourite Gary Mcsheffery breaking free on the right side on two occasions early on in the half.  Watford then  won two corners and in the 58th minute, the second saw the ball over to former Coventry player John Eustace on the edge of the area and he was left plenty of room to superbly send an over headed shot over Quirke and high into the net to score a frankly amazing goal for someone of his caliber. At this point although the singing continued in the away stand the fans truthfully believed that this game was over and another away defeat at Watford had occurred. This also look increasingly more likely when Coventry were pressing off Watford and allowing them plenty of time of the ball an with 5 minutes left fans were even leaving with the result almost assured. But uncharacteristically the City fought back remarkably to earn a improbable draw. The fight back started with 2 minutes left to play and Coventry finally managed to get the ball up to target man Clive Platt who found David Bell to shoot home from 20 yards. 2-1. The fans were happy to see a goal and I thought it was mere consolation.The away fans managed to pump up the away side so straight from the Watford kick off City won the ball and won a corner giving me time to think of how we could snatch a draw. Then the ball was floated across the penalty area only for Keogh to be pushed over in the box and the appeals started for a penalty and finally the ref gave it much to the fans delight. Jutkiewicz and Platt couldn't decide who to take the spot kick but Jutkiewicz was given the task and converted to send the City fans into raptures with to secure a 2-2 draw with two goals in the final 2 minutes. There was even time for City to have a final chance to win it but that would have been too good to be true. 

It was a fantastic fight back from Coventry to secure a draw when it looked like all hope was lost.