The 0-0 draw with Huddersfield on Wednesday night, acknowledged by Mark Robins as one of the best results of the season, extended the Sky Blues unbeaten run in the league to eight games. I had to go back a long way to find the last such run in the Championship and discovered it was Autumn 2003. In mid-October, under the stewardship of Gary McAllister, the team lost 3-1 at home to Cardiff before going on an eight-game run with one win and seven draws!
The only change that McAllister made after the Cardiff game was to drop goalkeeper Scott Shearer and give a debut to former Leicester and Liverpool custodian Pegguy Arphexad. Three days later City got a hard won 1-1 draw at Watford before winning 3-1 at Derby with Stephen Warnock and Patrick Suffo (2) on target. Then came five successive draws the final one being 1-1 at Crystal Palace when debutant loanee Johnny Jackson came off the bench to score a late equaliser. By this time Arphexad had been injured after just five games and Gavin Ward was between the posts. The run came to an end on a cold night at Rotherham when early goals from Darren Byfield and Shaun Barker gave the Millers the points. As a side note a certain Mark Robins came off the bench for Rotherham near the end. This turned out to be McAllister's penultimate game in charge – a week later he temporarily stood down to take care of his sick wife and Eric Black took the role. At the start of the run the Sky Blues were in 16th place, by the end of the run they were 15th. The eight game run was as follows:
October 21 Watford (a) 1-1 Staunton
October 25 Derby (a) 3-1 Warnock, Suffo 2
November 1 West Ham (h) 1-1 Barrett
November 5 Bradford C (h) 0-0 -
November 8 Sunderland (a) 0-0 -
November 22 Gillingham (h) 2-2 Joachim 2
November 25 Norwich (a) 1-1 McAllister (pen)
November 29 Crystal Palace (a) 1-1 Jackson
Over the last two weeks numerous people have asked me if Coventry City are close to setting a club record of penalties conceded in a season. At Wycombe last Saturday the Sky Blues conceded their seventh league penalty of the season and there have been two others in League Cup games at MK Dons and Gillingham.
The league penalties, which have all been converted, with the culprits, are:
QPR (h) Lyndon Dykes (foul by McFadzean)
Blackburn (h) Adam Armstrong (foul by Rose)
Nottm. Forest (a) Lyle Taylor (foul by McFadzean)
Watford (a) Ismaila Sarr (handball by O'Hare)
Norwich (a) Mario Vrancic (foul by Wilson)
Rotherham (h) Daniel Barlaser (foul by Wilson)
Wycombe (a) Joe Jacobsen (foul by Sheaf)
The penalty at MK Dons was saved by Marosi after Drysdale committed a foul whilst Jordan Graham scored from the spot for Gillingham after a foul by Rose.
The penalties had no effect on the final score in three of the league games but without them City would have picked up an extra point at both Forest and Watford and an extra two points at Norwich. It could be argued that at least five of the seven league penalties were soft and perhaps wouldn't have been given on another day.
The club record for league penalties conceded in a single season is 12, set in 2013-14 (the Northampton season). Goalkeeper Joe Murphy set a club record by saving five of them, so seven were scored.
The record for league penalties scored against City is 10, in 1979-80 season when no opposition penalties were missed/saved. That season some great players of the era netted from the penalty spot including Glen Hoddle (two in a 4-3 loss at Tottenham), John Robertson (scored home and away), Peter Barnes, Sammy McIlroy and John Wark.
In the last ten seasons the Sky Blues have conceded an average of seven league penalties a season whilst the average for the previous 64 seasons (i.e. since World War II) is 4.5 per season. This backs up the theory that there are more penalties given in the modern game. I haven't got the stats for penalties given in the domestic game this season but from watching Premier League games there seems to have been an increase, a number coming controversially as a result of VAR.
City have only been awarded one penalty this season (v Bournemouth) and their average for the last ten years in 3.9, just over half that conceded. Lets hope that the number of penalties conceded is one record that the Sky Blues can avoid this season and they can put an end to the current sequence.
This is my last column of 2020 so I will wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2021 when hopefully we will get back to watching the Sky Blues continue their phoenix-like rise up the leagues.
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