Bad result ends a bad week for Coventry City

Coventry City head into the international break in the bottom three of the Championship having taken just seven points from their ten games to date, winning just one league game and having taken just one point from five away fixtures.

Andy Thorn continues to get the maximum out of the resources available to him and is probably doing a better job than anyone else could with the same squad. The players are clearly behind their manager and both they and Thorn can point to some key moments in games which, had they gone City’s way, could have made that points total look all the more healthy.

But when you working under the tightest possible financial constraints all of those key moments have to go for you. Home draws against Reading and Blackpool could be dressed up as points taken from sides who were either in or close to the Premier League last season and just one defeat in six.

But when the same players are asked to give a huge effort for the third time in seven days and come up short it becomes no win in four games. In the meantime injuries continue to mount up (through the usual rigours of a 46-game Championship season) and options get stretched to breaking point.

‘trifling’

And yet the on-pitch struggles are trifling compared to another week of bad publicity off the pitch.

The attention being drawn to who are the ultimate owners of the football club (through their involvement with SISU) seems to be something of a side issue. It generates publicity for the MP involved but, even if names had to be named that wouldn’t solve the current problems.

However, closer to home, the negative press generated by the club’s treatment of their own fans through the increased security presence and intrusive searches introduced for the past couple of games, is another marker along the road to crowds dropping even further at the Ricoh Arena as supporters are given yet another reason to do something different with their Saturday afternoon.