COVENTRY CITY 0-1 QUEENS PARK RANGERS BY KEV MONKS
The Iain and Tim honeymoon period is well and truly over after City crashed to their second consecutive defeat at home to Queens Park Rangers
Against a club that Dowie once wore the shirt of, the City boss made two changes from the team that had been so awful at Birmingham last Sunday,bringing in Andy Whing and Khali Fadiga.
QPR managed by the Vile creature that is John Gregory fielded former Sky Blue Paul Furlong in their starting eleven with Rohan Ricketts on the bench.
As with the Birmingham game, City,attacking the CT Stand, were sluggish to start. The visitors had attacked twice before Dele Adebola turned his marker in the sixth minute and found Fadiga's whose shot was deflected for a corner which was met by Ward but blocked by the feet of the Nigerian.
Andy Whing, who is out of contract at the end of the season, did himself no favours as he struggled on the right side of midfield and all
too often had to be bailed out by Adam Virgo playing behind him.
There was little creativity from the City midfield and some of the bang it forward and hope Michael Mifsud gets it style of play was very reminiscent of times under Micky Adams.
Coventry should have had a penalty when Adam Virgo was brought down in the 29th minute with a tackle from behind after Mifsud had been sent sprawling. Nothing was given by Mr Miller who was deputising for Uriah Rennie and nothing was given seconds later when Fadiga went down on the edge of the box.
City won a couple of corners and Damien Stewart was cautioned in what was at times a niggly game for a shove on Whing.
Two more chances occurred before the break. Good work by Fadiga found Ward who forced Camp into a save and in the 44th minute,the former Derby keeper who let in six in the last ever game at Highfield Road fumbled a Mifsud shot for a corner.
A bumper crowd mused at the interval on a warm,sunny Easter Saturday afternoon at the Arena on how this was not a good performance and how the Sky Blues badly needed a goal.
Seven minutes into the second half, there was a goal but the Sky Blues who were conceding not scoring.
Andy Marshall who received the London Supporters Club Player Of The Year award after the game got a hand to a Furlong point blank effort and recovered to get his right hand when Dexter Blackstock raced in. The ball came loose and there was Jimmy Smith waiting to squeeze the ball into the net.
The 1900 visiting fans were jubilant when they realised their side had actually scored whilst our faces got longer and longer as the game went on.
QPR shut up shop and with the Sky Blues clueless on to how to breach the defence, it was hard to see a City team playing like this was the last game of the season and they would be on the beach this time tomorrow getting anything out of the game.
Dowie tried to change things round. Andy Whing was replaced by Leon McKenzie who went up front with Adebola and Mifsud wide right,straight after the goal.
Robert Page came on for Colin Hawkins who had taken a bang on the head. The Irishman was clapped off the pitch but as the Welshman entered the clapping stopped.
It also stopped when Kevin Kyle, who this week was sentenced to 120 hours community service for his audition in the new series of Rab C Nesbitt in Stranraer last October,entered the field of play in place of Michael Mifsud in the 69th minute.
By the 84th minute, all six substitutions had been made,there were five bookings and Adebola missed at the far post with a header.
Suddenly out of the CT Stand,an idiot raced onto the pitch and made it over the halfway line. He lost a QPR defender who tried to usher him off but could not fend off Kevin Kyle who bundled him into the waiting arms of City's security staff and later the police who arrested him.
Kyle did have one effort which produced the first of two corners in stoppage time but the boos that rang out on the final whistle were totally deserved.
HT CCFC 0-0 QPR FT CCFC 0-1 QPR
ATT 22,850
GOAL Jimmy Smith (52)
Referee P.Miller Booked Stewart,Doyle,Moore,Virgo, Kanyuka
Team
Marshall,Virgo,Hawkins (Page 62),Ward,Hall,Whing (McKenzie 53),Doyle,Hughes,Fadiga,Mifsud (Kyle 69), Adebola SNU Steele,Cameron
QPR
Camp,Cullip,Bolder (Lomas 71),Ainsworth, Moore, Kanyuka,Stewart,Timoska (Bignot 55),Furlong (Nygaard 63),Blackstock,Smith SNU Cole,Ricketts