Doyle Set To Keep His Starting Place

Last updated : 16 November 2010 By Covsupport News Service/RD

Michael Doyle is back in Aidy Boothroyd's first eleven as a direct replacement for the injured Sammy Clingan, but the 29 year old midfielder is aiming to keep his place and give his manager Aidy Boothroyd a selection headache when Clingan is fit again.

Doyle said to the CT: "I was delighted to get a start and as I have said before it is all about the lads and the team. I keep training hard and keep myself ready for when I am needed.


"Unfortunately for Sammy Clingan he is injured and I have got a chance while he is out for a few weeks. Hopefully I can get the games under my belt and make an impression. I will keep plugging away and keep pushing the lads and see how we go."

Doyle's first game as first choice didn't go as well as he had hoped as Coventry went down 2-0 to bottom placed club Crystal Palace and he admitted, "We are very disappointed especially given we had a lot of chances in the first half and on another day we probably could have been a couple of goals ahead, so it is unfortunate because we played really well to the break."

"Their keeper [Speroni] made an unbelievable save to deny Lee Carsley in the second half and there would have only been one winner if we had got the goal, and then they went up and got a penalty and killed the game off and we were chasing it after that and unfortunately we couldn't get the goal."

"I didn't really see it because it was our corner and they broke on us, but it is disappointing again because if it had been 1-1 or 0-0 at that stage they wouldn't have got that chance because we were throwing everything at them to try to get an equaliser and they caught us on the counter and got the penalty.

"What we have to do is build on our first half performance because we showed a lot of positives in there and we have to get ready for Burnley this week."

After a promising start to the season which saw Coventry City up to fourth place in the Npower Championship, the Sky Blues then went on a three game losing run and dropped to 11th place in the table, but City are at home to Burnley on Saturday and Doyle is hoping to see his side get back to winning ways and that the fans turn up in large numbers.

"I hope the fans come back on Saturday because I think against Leeds we gave a great account of ourselves and were unfortunate to lose," he said.

"It is up to us now to get another couple of wins to put us right back amongst it. So I hope we get a good crowd because it is going to be a really tough game. They are in the top six so hopefully it will draw a crowd and that we can get a result to keep getting the fans up there."


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