REVENGE MISSION
‘WE OWE THEM ONE’: CITY BID TO MAKE IT THIRD TIME LUCKY AGAINST WALSALL
COVENTRY City have the opportunity to kick Midland rivals Walsall while they are down when they face the Saddlers for the third time this season.
Mark Robins’s Sky Blues will be looking to avenge their Banks’s Stadium defeats in the FA Cup and league from November and December when they come face to face again at the Ricoh Arena tomorrow.
The last time the two sides met left a particular bad taste due to the manner of the loss – City having led 1-0 for 90 minutes before being hit by two stoppage time goals from Coventry-born Luke Leahy.
Coventry have managed just four wins from the 11 games since, but hope last Saturday’s three points at Rochdale will spark an upturn in results to get their play-off ambitions back on track.
City defender Jordan Willis revealed there’s distinct feeling in the Sky Blues dressing room that they owe Walsall.
“There is definitely that feeling,” he said.
“No one wants to be beaten three times in a season by one team so there’s certainly an aura about the place that we want to get that win, and even more so on the back of the last few weeks when the performances have been good.
“We have created a lot of chances and not given away too many either.
“If the performances weren’t great we’d be worrying but we know we just need to keep plugging away and the results will come.”
Walsall boss Dean Keates, meanwhile, admits his team will now be seen as favourites for relegation after they crashed to defeat against bottom of the table AFC Wimbledon on Tuesday night.
The Saddlers, who have now won just one of their last 12 games, were beaten 1-0 by the Dons in a crunch relegation sixpointer at the Banks’s, which Keates had described as the club’s biggest game of the season against a side who recorded their first win in seven league games. The defeat means the Saddlers are now just two points above the relegation zone. Keates ad-mitted they will now be seen as favourites to go down.
“It’s not a good position and there’s no papering over cracks,” he said, speaking to the Express and Star.
“We are free-falling and we will be considered everybody’s favourites to go down even though we are eighth from bottom
No one wants to be beaten three times in a season by one team so there’s certainly an aura about the place that we want to get that win. Jordan Willis
and there are seven teams below us.
“It’s still in our hands but we need to find something, we need a building block to build on, something to stop the rot. It hurts. It’s my hometown club and I’ll get judged on results but all of us, we have to stand up and be counted.”
Walsall began the season on a seven-match unbeaten run with that form seeing them rise up to fourth in the table.
And Keates says the reason for his team’s contrasting form is confidence. “It’s confidence – confidence and momentum are massive in football,” he said.
“When you are up there and you are flying, everything goes for you. When you are down there, you start over-analysing, this goes against us, that goes against us, a bobble goes against us, you’re hanging on to every decision that the referee doesn’t give you.
“We’ve got to get away from that. There’s only us that can turn it around and we have to be braver. We’ve got to get back what it was.”