Coventry City progressed to the FA Cup Fifth Round on Tuesday evening with a comprehensive 4-1 victory over Sheffield Wednesday. It is only the second time in 15 seasons that the club have reached the last 16 of the competition, the other being 2017-18 when the club were in League Two. Whilst it was a great team effort I have to single out Casey Palmer and Callum O'Hare who gave us a master class in creative football. We've come to expect quality performances from O'Hare and one wonders what would have happened last season if the Solihull Messi had not been injured and missed the second half of the season. Since his injury he has added goalscoring to his armoury and turned himself into a player surely heading to the Premiership.
Before his injury on Boxing Day 2022 Callum had scored 12 goals in 117 starts and 29 substitute appearances. Since recovering from his ACL injury and returning to the side at the end of October he has netted nine goals in 12 starts and seven from the bench. Since his first start after injury, at Ipswich in December, City have lost only twice in 14 games. The statistics tell the story.
Kasey Palmer has never played a better game for City. He looks fully fit, enormously confident and is fulfilling the potential he showed as a Chelsea youngster. I can rarely remember a better performance from a Coventry midfield player in my 60 years of watching the team. It reminded me of a virtuoso performance from the legendary Ian Gibson against West Brom in an early season game at Highfield Road in 1968. The supremely talented 'Gibbo' had fallen out with manager Noel Cantwell and there were strong rumours that he was on his way out of the club. Cantwell recalled him to face the Baggies and he gave a dazzling display of dribbling and passing, creating a hat-trick for Ernie Hunt in a 4-2 victory. Afterwards Cantwell sheepishly admitted that there was no chance of Gibbo leaving the club after that performance.
Ian Gibson
City's unbeaten run came to an end at Carrow Road last week after 12 league and cup games without defeat since City's previous trip to East Anglia in early December when they lost at Ipswich. The run was the club's best since 2019-20 when Mark Robins' team were unbeaten in 18 league and cup games when football was suspended for Covid (the Birmingham penalty shoot-out defeat counted as a draw). That team were also unbeaten in 14 league games from mid-December until 7th March. East Anglia is not a happy hunting ground for the Sky Blues – they have won only two of their last 15 league trips to Portman Road and only one of the last 17 at Carrow Road.
Another run came to an end at Norwich – City had scored two or more goals in seven successive league games with 19 goals in all but only managed one goal at Carrow Road. The run was only one short of the club's all-time record, set in 1959-60. Newly promoted to the old Division Three, City were beaten 5-1 at Southampton on the 24th October (the Dell was a bogey ground in those days) but in every one of the next eight games scored two or more goals. Unlike this season's team they lost two of those games but the run, with 25 goals, lifted them into the top three. 11 of the 25 goals came from the boots of young striker Ken Satchwell. Sadly the club's promotion push faltered and they finished in fifth place and it would take another four years to get promotion to Division Two.
This was the run in 1959-60:
Oct 31 Southend (h) won 2-0
Nov 7 Shrewsbury (a) lost 2-3
Nov 21 Norwich (a) won 4-1
Nov 28 Brentford (h) won 2-0
Dec 12 Reading (a) lost 2-4
Dec 25 Wrexham (h) won 5-3
Dec 26 Wrexham (a) won 3-1
Jan 12 York (h) won 5-2
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Gibbo? Now you’re talking my language.
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