COVENTRY CITY 0-1 HULL CITY BY KEV MONKS
Date 12/03/11 At The Ricoh Arena
Team
Westwood, Keogh, Cameron (Hussey 83), Wood, Cranie (Clarke 85), Bell (Baker 74), Clingan, Gunnarsson, McSheffrey, Eastwood, Jutkiewicz. SNU Ruffles, Quirke, O’Donovan, O’Halloran
Hull City
Guzan, Rosenior, Chester, Gerrard, Dawson (Hobbs 37), Carney (Garcia 71), Harper, Evans, Koren, Fryatt, McLean (Barmby 80). SNU Amoo, Oxley, Belaid, Simpson
HT CCFC 0-1 HCFC FT CCFC 0-1 HCFC ATT 14,370
Goal Aaron McLean (32)
Referee Steve Tanner Booked Clingan, Westwood, Evans, Barmby
Man Of The Match The City supporters for watching this tripe.
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Pretty much like the weather on this Saturday afternoon, it all ended up with more doom and gloom as Coventry City went down to a 1-0 home defeat to Hull City at the Ricoh Arena.
The visit of a third successive team with ‘City’ in their name saw us walking in a Ricoh Arena ground which is increasing its segregation rules to include getting those on concession season tickets out of what the club class as a ‘premium area’ (a brave move from a club that relies on off-loading cheap school tickets in order to boost its attendances), on a cloudy afternoon.
We saw that goalkeeper Keiren Westwood had passed a late fitness test and was back in the starting eleven with Michael Quirke who had done very well in Tuesday night’s draw at Doncaster dropped to the bench.
Sammy Clingan tested the visiting keeper with a third minute free kick as City attacked the away end for the first half but there was little for the Coventry support to get excited about until the Sky Blues won a 21st minute corner.
That provoked a chorus of “Sky Blue Army” from the back of the CT Stand but a poor flag kick was easily punched away by Brad Gurzan.
Some poor defending allowed a 32nd minute long ball up to Matty Fryatt who played the ball into the path of ARRON MCLEAN who duly dispatched it into the bottom corner of the net and delighting the 1200 or so Hull supporters.
Too many City players were simply going through the motions. Granted they must be frustrated with the way the club is being run like every City supporter and the lack of finance which means that no contracts, apart from those which automatically kick in, cannot be sorted at this stage, but the stats show that City have had close to 450 efforts on goal and only scored 38 goals, so the players who have played, do have to take their share of the responsibility for the fact that we are worrying about how the teams at the bottom of the table are doing rather than those at the top.
It was little wonder that after a bad miss by Robert Koren from twelve yards, City were booed off at the interval.
There was not the heading for the casino that there had been at half-time of the Bristol City game and those still in the ground saw the Sky Blues now playing in sunshine, deliver a lovely 52nd minute ball through Freddy Eastwood over to David Bell who hit a shot which was deflected for a corner.
Richard Wood was first to the flag kick and his header from a yard out had to be headed off the line by Corry Evans before the ball was cleared up to Clingan who drilled it wide.
Westwood made a good save at the other end before Keogh was pulled down in the 59th minute. Clingan took the free kick and found Aron Gunnarsson who hit a shot which looked to be going in before it was cleared off the line by Jack Hobbs who did the same again when Skipper Richard Wood came piling in with a header.
After that, you could see that it was not to be Coventry’s day. With the rain coming down, forcing some of those on the schools tickets at the front of the CT Stand to seek shelter further back in the stand, David Bell, whose involvement in the match got less as the game went on, was replaced by Carl Baker.
Some City supporters in the Tescos Stand made their views known on Bell’s performance but to be fair, he was no worse than any other player in a Sky Blue shirt.
Things were that bad that I was having to count a 78th minute long kick from Keiren Westwood that was gathered by the opposing keeper as a shot on target before City forced three corners in quick succession.
Hull cleared the last of McSheffrey’s flag kicks with ease and broke up the other and Matty Fryatt should really have added to the visitors goal tally but he fired wide.
Chris Hussey came on in the 83rd minute for Nathan Cameron and brought a note with him which he duly passed to Aron Gunnarsson and then Richard Wood. What it said was anyone’s guess but two minutes later, there was another change when Martin Cranie limped off and had to be replaced by Jordan Clarke.
In the four minutes of stoppage time, Aron Gunnarsson fired across the box but there was no touch from another City player and the City support left knowing they had just wasted two hours of their life, which they won’t get back.