WARBURTON RAPS KANE’S CLANGER
COVENTRY PREPARE TO RET
MARK Warburton admitted a first-half miss by Todd Kane cost his QPR side a point against Huddersfield.
Kane shot straight at keeper Ryan Schofield after being teed up by Ilias Chair before Juninho Bacuna clinically fired home the winner for Town ten minutes into the second half.
Hoops boss Warburton said: “If you score in that spell before half-time they have then got to come out after halftime and attack you and that’s when we can hurt teams.
“That’s why that goal is so important. We’ve got to be better in front of their goal.
“Score and take that chance and it changes the dynamic of the game. We didn’t do that.
“We missed a big chance but that’s just one moment of the game. We’ve got to be better and create chances.”
Bacuna struck 10 minutes into the second half at the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium to clinch only a second win in 15 matches for the Terriers – and their first away win since October.
Pipa sent the ball in low from the left and Bacuna fired a firsttime shot past keeper Seny Dieng from near the edge of the penalty area.
Huddersfield were the better side for much of the game, with Isaac Mbenza shooting narrowly wide early on and Lewis O’Brien seeing a similar effort pushed away by Dieng.
Richard Keogh also went close for the visitors when he headed wide from a corner, while Bacuna shot over as QPR struggled to find any rhythm.
But the best chance of the first half fell to Rangers and was created by Chair, who found space on the right-hand side of the penalty area and teed up Kane, only for him to shoot straight at Schofield from seven yards out.
Schofield stood his ground well and then reacted quickly to claw the ball away and prevent Kane following up, but it was a gilt-edged opportunity missed.
And it proved to be a costly miss for Warburton’s side, who failed to create another clear-cut chance.
Bacuna, on the other hand, made no mistake after being set up Pipa, who created another chance for him soon afterwards but on that occasion the Curaçao international dragged a shot well wide.
Bacuna went much closer with a free-kick he steered just wide, and Duane Holmes’ long-range effort brought an awkward save from Dieng as Huddersfield threatened a second goal.
Warburton sent on winger Albert Adomah and striker Lyndon Dykes, switching to two up front for the final 15 minutes in an attempt to breathe some life into his team.
But it had no effect with Town seeing the game out fairly comfortably.
Huddersfield boss Carlos Corberan said his side’s win was a much-needed boost.
“It was a very important win for us. It is a big day for the players,” said the Spaniard.
“They have been suffering and this win was a big one for the players and their confidence.
“We want this competitive spirit and I think it is going to be key for us between now and the end of the year.”
ENGLAND’S record goalscorer is going to have to show his players how it’s done if Derby County are to stay clear of relegation.
The Rams haven’t scored in four games and boss Wayne Rooney is getting worried.
Rooney rattled in 253 goals for Manchester United and 53 in an England shirt – no one has done better for United or country.
He needs to get some of that goal dust sprinkled on his Derby strikers because their inactivity is in danger of pulling the Rams down towards the Championship’s bottom three again.
Derby haven’t won in five games and, apart from sub Louie Sibley hitting the crossbar, didn’t look like beating Millwall.
Shaun Hutchinson’s header just before half-time won a game in which Derby had most of the control, but no finishing power.
Millwall defended superbly and Rooney said: “We were in control of the game. From our goalkeeper up until the edge of their box we were good. But in trying to score we were poor.
“The attacking players have to want to score, they have to be prepared to put their bodies on the line to get across defenders.
“There has to be better movement, better anticipation. If they don’t do that then the hard work we do on the rest of the pitch means nothing.”
It allowed former Derby boss Gary Rowett’s hoodoo to strike again.
“That’s three wins and a draw when I’ve been back to Derby,” said Rowett, who took the club to the play-offs when he managed the Rams three years ago.
Rowett’s family home is in Derby and he added: “I hope Derby stay clear of trouble but I’m Millwall manager now.
“We won here last season and finished eighth in the table. I’m looking to see if we can improve on that this season.”
Derby had 70 per cent possession but could not find a way through.
Hutchinson’s winner came from Millwall being in Derby’s penalty area for the first time and from the first corner of the game.
Millwall were content to defend what Derby threw at them – which wasn’t a lot.
Craig Forsyth had three headers, one at keeper
Bartosz Bialkowski, one wide and one hopelessly wide. Kamil Jozwiak also drove a shot that was blocked by Bialkowski and that was it from Derby until Sibley’s 78th-minute chance.
Millwall showed Derby how it should be done.
Jed Wallace took the corner and 6ft tall Hutchinson seized his chance, heading into the corner of the net.
Millwall’s defenders didn’t even have to breathe heavily to contain Derby and Rowett added: “It doesn’t mean that much more to me to come to Derby and win.
“We do have former Derby players in the team though and I think they might have thought they had something to prove.”
AITOR Karanka insists he will not resign after watching his Birmingham side fall to Bristol City – the club’s 12th home defeat of the season.
Defensive errors allowed Kasey Palmer, Antoine Semenyo and substitute Callum O’Dowda to make it three straight away wins for Nigel Pearson’s side.
Karanka intends to carry on despite taking just 13 points out of the last 57 available.
Before the game there was a minor protest from Birmingham fans driving a van around the city and outside St Andrew’s, aimed at owners Trillion Trophy Asia and chief executive Xuandong Ren, rather than Karanka.
Asked if he will resign, Karanka said: “No chance. In my career I never gave up and here isn’t going to be the first place.
“The answer is to keep working in the way I am and to keep trying to do the things I can control.
“The aim is just to try to organise the training sessions as well as I can.
“I tell them they have to do things defensively and attacking-wise, but we finished the game with Sam Cosgrove and Lukas Jutkiewicz up front and we didn’t deliver one ball into the box, so it’s impossible to score goals.”
The visitors created two chances in the first five minutes.
Blues captain Harlee Dean deliberately ducked out of a header, thinking the ball was going to run to goalkeeper Neil Etheridge.
But it failed to carry enough power and striker Famara Diedhiou was on to it, only to rush and blaze high over the bar.
Semenyo was next to test the Blues defence, finding himself clean through only to pass when he could have shot and Maxime Colin cleared.
Blues then went desperately close to a breakthrough with Hogan twice hitting a post.
Bristol City made them pay when Palmer dispossessed Rekeem Harper in midfield and away between Colin and Marc Roberts before drawing Etheridge and calmly sidefooted the ball home.
Palmer went close with the first effort of the second half when his inswinging corner had to be tipped away by Etheridge.
Semenyo made it 2-0 when Etheridge’s clearance cannoned off him and bounced into the unguarded net after
Kristian Pedersen left the goalkeeper short with a backpass.
O’Dowda scored within 60 seconds of replacing Nahki Wells, rolling the ball past Etheridge after getting the wrong side of Roberts after latching on to Palmer’s short pass.
City caretaker manager Pearson praised his side’s ability to shut out the opposiraced tion after last week’s 2-0 defeat at home to QPR.
“The most important thing is the clean sheet. That’s really something I want us to work hard to preserve and, to a man, they did it,” he said.
“We needed to rectify how we played collectively and I thought we did that, both in terms of defending exceptionally well as a side, but also utilising our pace and power.”
THE Sky Blues have sent themselves back to Coventry and are hoping for a celebration party on the first day of the new season. Sky TV have Friday, August 6 as the night they kick-off 202122 and Cov are hoping that their cameras will be at the Ricoh Arena to see them come home.
“That would be fantastic,” says Steve Ogrizovic, who kept goal 507 times for Coventry in 16 years at the club.
Now 63, Oggy follows Coventry as a local radio analyst and has put in the miles to temporary Sky Blue homes at Northampton (33 miles) and Birmingham (22 miles) in recent years.
The stadium, with its casino and hotel, was built for Coventry City FC when they left Highfield Road, their home for 106 years, in 2005. But they were on the move to Northampton in 2013 when they fell out with their landlords. They stayed for over a year before returning home and you’d have thought that was that – not so.
Move
Wasps Rugby Club moved in with them as tenants, then bought the place off Coventry City Council, and all hell broke out.
The council did not come out of it well, accused of selling too cheaply – and the Sky Blues later fell out with new landlords Wasps. The Sky Blues had virtually no income from match day revenues and rent still to find.
So they put the club in a suitcase again and drove to St Andrew’s, Birmingham, two years ago.
They’ve done well there too. Promotion to the Championship last season and only six defeats in 35 home games so far.
That’s better than landlords Birmingham City, who have lost 21 of their last 40 home games.
But as Oggy says, Coventry’s fans haven’t celebrated promotion to the Championship and haven’t seen them play at that level at all since 2012.
It needs four things to happen for that big celebration to happen in the first week of August.
1. Coventry need to win their current Championship relegation battle
2. Covid-19 needs to be beaten so that football grounds can be full of fans again.
3. The EFL computer needs to show a little romance and give Coventry a home first game of the new season.
4. Sky TV cash in and get the game on the telly.
When Coventry returned to the Ricoh in 2014 there were 27,306 in the ground for the 1-0 win over Gillingham in League One.
Oggy can see that happening again. The man who won the FA Cup with Coventry on the best day in the club’s history in 1987 says: “I think it’s fantastic news for all the Coventry fans, the players, the club, everybody. It’s really the only decision that could be made.
“I can’t see Coventry City having a future if they had to play away from their home for any further length of time. It’s been nearly two years at Birmingham now.
“Coventry built themselves a fortress at Birmingham last season in League One and they have been pretty good there this season. The players adapted to playing at Birmingham very quickly and I hope they do that again at the Ricoh.
Fortress
“It’s a tremendous incentive now for the end of this season, to make sure that Coventry City are in the Championship and take that level of football back to the Ricoh.”
Under the old Ricoh deal with Wasps, it is believed Coventry were only getting 15 per cent of the match day revenue from food and drink sales etc. It amounted to £76,000 a year. A Premier League player would almost spend that on a haircut.
“The club have done brilliantly to get into the Championship and it’s a shame the fans haven’t been able to celebrate it,” adds Ogrizovic.
“Sky Blue fans have been starved of that level of football for so long, nearly a decade.
“I’ve had my fingers crossed all week that everything would be ratified this time because the club have got so close before to going back and it didn’t happen.
“What a great occasion it will be next season, the first game at the Ricoh with Championship football, the fans being able to celebrate the promotion for the first time and seeing their team playing at that level again.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves because there is still work to be done by the team, but that game could be quite special.
“If Coventry are at home for that first game and Sky snap it up, then the whole country will be able to see what being back home means to the club and the fans.”
Coventry officials predict