Coventry’s abject performance at ‘home’ to Cardiff in the first
round of the League Cup heaped more misery on Sky Blue supporters with things
not looking like improving, both on and off the field.
Coventry City went into Wednesday’s clash with everything
still seemingly against them. Seven first team players left in the summer with
fairly inadequate replacements adding to the fact they are still playing at Northampton’s
Sixfields stadium 35 miles from Coventry, and little to no money to spend has
left Coventry fans wondering again when this nightmare will end. A light squad
was connoted with 3 players making their professional debut in this League Cup
tie.
Coventry have started the new season deploying 5-3-2 formation with three centre backs and
two wing backs making up the back 5, which was used in yesterday's fixture. But the young guns of Coventry started immediately
on the back foot when poor defending from Jordan Clarke and Jordan Willis
resulted in the two colliding which allowed Burgstaller
to fire home and give Cardiff the lead. Cardiff completely dominated possession
of the ball and created chances to increase their lead. Lee Burge who was
making his professional debut was made to produce a couple of saves but nothing
that really tested the young keeper. Coventry were extremely poor in possession
as they kept giving the ball away too many times instead of playing the simple
option.
Cardiff started the second half much the
same way but on the hour mark, Coventry's Josh McQuoid broke through on goal but his shot
went wide of the target. As the game wore on, Coventry were allowed a foot hold
of the game but mistakes were still occurring far too regularly from this inexperienced
side. And that inexperienced showed when Miller fired over a shot after being
put through one-on-one with the goalkeeper but fumbled under the pressure. This
proved costly as just 4 minutes later with less than 10 minutes to go, Mats Daehli broke through on the left hand side before
he played a ball into the six yard box in which 18 year old Haynes put through his own net to
make it 2-0 to Cardiff. However, Coventry showed character to come back when Haynes put a testing ball into the penalty area that Miller tapped
home for his first Sky Blue goal and a way back into the match. Their last
chance came in stoppage time when stand in captain Andy Webster headed wide,
and the score ended Coventry City 1-2 Cardiff City with Cardiff progressing to
the second round.
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