Sky Blues move could see pitch be perfect again
COVENTRY City’s return to the Ricoh Arena will spell the end of a groundshare with Birmingham City.
Coventry have been playing their games at Blues’ St Andrew’s stadium since the beginning of the 2019-20 season and have actually done well away from their ‘usual’ home ground.
They’ve only lost four times in B9 this season following promotion to the Championship and two of those defeats came at the hands of promotionchasing AFC Bournemouth and Norwich City.
Indeed, before the coronavirus pandemic ended the 2019-20 campaign and sent Coventry up as
League One champions on points-per-game
City made St Andrew’s a fortress with only one defeat in the 17 games they played there.
In fact, the Sky Blues dropped points just six times.
However, that agreement is to come to an end, with the BBC reporting that there are ‘significant’ costs to ending the deal between the two clubs but that there is a good relationship between both parties.
As far as Blues are concerned, the St Andrew’s pitch would benefit from not having two teams playing there throughout a season with the state of the turf a talking point after a 2-1 defeat of Queens Park Rangers on Saturday.
Rangers boss Mark Warburton took issue with the pitch and Blues boss Aitor Karanka agreed.
“I’m 100 per cent with him – if the pitch would have been better since the start of the season we would have played a lot better and won more games,” he said.
“This is what we are living, another team – Coventry – is playing here, we have to live this moment.
“When I came here I knew Coventry were playing here, it is not a complaint.”