What a game at the CBS Arena last Saturday! The Sky Blues demolished the league leaders Leicester City 3-1 in a thrilling final twelve minutes or so to inflict only the fourth league defeat of the Foxes' season. The defeat ended Leicester's 11-match unbeaten run in the Championship in which they had won nine and meant City became the first team to score more than two goals against them. You have to go back to February 2008 for the Sky Blues' last win over their M69 rivals since which the clubs have drawn four and Leicester have won three.
Watched by the biggest crowd of the season, 29,914, which is also the second biggest league crowd ever at the CBS Arena, the Sky Blues showed all of their renowned 'never say die' attitude to overcome a team packed with players with Premiership experience and pedigree. Trailing from a controversial penalty, the team never panicked and showed great patience until eleven minutes from time when Callum O'Hare scored the equaliser. A second goal from Milan Van Ewijk and another O'Hare special sealed a famous comeback victory.
It was the second successive league comeback following the 3-1 win at Middlesbrough something no Coventry City side has done since December 2012 during Mark Robins' first spell as manager. Then there were two away wins in four days over Christmas. At Stevenage on Boxing Day City trailed 1-0 until the 78th minute before Richard Wood, Carl Baker and David McGoldrick ensured a vital win. Three days later at MK Dons Daniel Powell gave the home side an early lead, Franck Moussa equalised, Ryan Lowe restored the Dons lead before Stephen Elliott nabbed two goals to give the Sky Blues a 3-2 win and extend their unbeaten run to 12 games.
The victory was also City's first comeback win at the CBS Arena since March 2022 when Sheffield United were defeated 4-1 after taking an early lead. City's scorers on what was Legends Day 2022 were Gyokeres, O'Hare 2 and Godden. The Leicester win was the 23rd home league comeback win since the move to the new stadium in 2005 including one at Sixfields (2013-14) and five at St Andrews (2019-21) and in my opinion was the most exciting, bearing in mind the quality of the opposition and the atmosphere in the stadium. The Fulham win in 2021 was good as was the last minute 3-2 win over Peterborough at Sixfields at Christmas 2013. In fact poor Peterborough have been the losers in three of those 23 comebacks and the 2015 3-2 win with two late Adam Armstrong goals was a classic.
Saturday's excellent crowd took the average for the season to 24,742 and if maintained will be the club's highest average since 1970-71 – the season that City played in Europe, averaged 26,039 and finished 10th in the old Division One. This season's average has only been bettered in 10 out of the 97 seasons the club has been members of the Football League – the best being in City's first season in the top flight, 1967-68, when crowds averaged a staggering 34,705. Whilst the CBS Arena has an official capacity of 32,609 there are a number of unusable areas between home and away fans meaning that record average will not be bettered.
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