Bell Relishing His Chance Under Thorn

Last updated : 30 March 2011 By Covsupport News Service/RD

One of the fringe players under previous manager Aidy Boothroyd, midfielder turned winger David Bell is relishing working under caretaker manager Andy Thorn.

Thorn used Bell as the front man in a diamond midfield formation at Preston and he scored his first goal for the club since August last year, ironically against City's next opponents Watford in the 2-2 draw.


After Boothroyd was sacked, Thorn took over temporary care and immediately changed tactics which are much more to the liking of Bell.

Bell said to the CT: "I am really looking forward to taking that style of play into the Ricoh. I am one of the players who is all for it because from a selfish point of view it suits my game down to the ground.

"I like to play football and pass it about and get on the ball and sometimes with the way we played in the past it didn't really suit me because it was hard to get into the game when the ball was in the air a lot. So it is something that me and all the boys are really excited about."

Bell scored the equalising goal at Deepdale, but the joy at scoring soon turned to disappointment when Preston scored a last second winner

"We started a bit slow in the first half but got ourselves back in the game in the second and I thought we were comfortable after we scored," he said. "So to concede with virtually the last kick of the game, I can't put it into words really. We are really upset about it."

Talking about his goal, Bell said: "Chris Hussey got the ball on the left and he whipped a cross in to Lukas Jutkiewicz and I bent my run in front of him and it was a great touch from him to be honest and it landed to me and I just passed it into the corner with the inside of my foot."

"It was a good finish and I am pleased with my goal but it would have looked a lot better if it had given us a point. After we scored I thought we looked comfortable, which is the most disappointing thing because it wasn't like they bombarded us for the last 20 minutes."

"It was literally the last kick of the game and conceding from set pieces is something we work on a lot and don't like to do. I am not sure who was picking up the scorer but whoever it was has to be picking him up."

Trying to analyse the inconsistency that has plagued Coventry City, Bell explained, "Andy Thorn said at half time to us, how can we play like we did at Burnley and then go and play like that in the first half. He touched base on it again afterwards saying it was one extreme to the other because we looked a bit sloppy and Preston got about us."

"Then we looked fairly comfortable after we scored and had chances to go on and win it. So we are gutted, but for one and a half games we have performed a lot better than we have been."

"We have got the ball down and tried to pass it. We have changed our system to 4-3-3 now but we just need to make sure we don't start games like we did at Preston."