September 21 2005

Selhurst Park

Coventry at home, such memories, all of them bad. We never do well against them, ever. So that would explain partly why only 5,347 fans turned up (Coventry providing the 347) for this encounter, by Simon Pophale.

By half-time, the match had lived up to its hype, or moreover the lack of it. A dire 45 minutes that saw Coventry attack from the 1st minute when Andy Morrell shot over from 10 yards, Gary McSheffrey have 3 efforts all off target before the half hour mark had been reached.

And all we could offer was an effort from Jobi McAnuff and one from Aaron Fray, whose 20 yard run ended with a tame shot that Clayton Ince gathered with the ease of a goalkeeper that had not been tested for 45 minutes.

What this match did for for us hardy souls that were present at Selhurst Park was too see a vision of what life can be like without Andy Johnson. In fact, life without AJ, Clinton, Macken and Doogie.

Wayne Andrews (bless him) was given the role of playing up front on his own, which sums up why we didn’t get going in the first half. A team, largely inexperienced and experimental, did not find its feet at all and Coventry were exposing the nervousness of players like Aaron Fray, Sam Togwell and Anthony Danze by hustling and harrying them into mistakes.

The ball never really got to poor Wayne, who must wonder where his first goal is going to come from.

By the end of the match, Andrews could be forgiven for thinking that he is never going to score for us. He had 2 chances after the restart, which showed that he has got the ability, as on 55 minutes he got the ball from McAnuff and on the edge of the penalty area turned and hit a shot which whizzed past Ince’s right hand post.

Just after the hour he was at it again, this time on the right hand side, turning and sending a curling effort inches wide of the top left hand corner. Ince could breathe again, but we were on top now and it was only a matter of time before the goal went in.

Which it did on 66 minutes. We were having sustained pressure on the Coventry goal and Aki Rihiilaati crossed the ball across the penalty area, which was only half cleared by the Coventry defence and Marco Reich, who only joined us in the afternoon and had been on the pitch for a whole 11 minutes, turned Paul Watson on the edge of the area and sent a shot into the top left hand corner to put us in the lead.

Yet despite this lead, the game degenerated into another midfield battle, with neither team really taking control and as the minutes ticked by, Micky Adams sent on Dele Adebola in order to shake things up for the Sky Blues but it brought no dividends.

Only when Kevin Thornton came in with 7 minutes to go, did Coventry start to show anything like the desire to try to force extra time.

With a minute of normal time left, Thornton won a corner and so began a Coventry onslaught which saw them try to claim a penalty for a foul on Adebola by Fitz Hall, Thornton put another chance wide and Speroni had to be alert to ensure that we maintained our lead.

When the whistle finally went, to much relief from the crowd all around, it was another home win, another clean sheet and we now go into the third round. Yet poor old Wayne Andrews is still searching for his first goal. Some things in life are just not fair.