Nothing To Lose Sky Blues

Coventry City go into Wednesday night’s Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie against Crewe Alexandra with nothing to lose after the Railwaymen’s three second-half goals in the first-leg made them clear favourites to reach the Wembley final.

And yet the Sky Blues will travel to Gresty Road confident, if not of an overall victory, of at least making their hosts sweat before confirming their place underneath the arch.

Saturday’s comfortable success at Bury was yet another win on the road for City and provided almost the perfect template for the trip to Crewe. An early goal will set the tie up nicely and caretaker boss Lee Carsley knows that his side have goals in their locker on their travels (31 away from home in the league this season, the most in the division).

A lot has changed since over 30,000 packed into the Ricoh Arena for the first-leg and because of that anything that City do get out of the tie will be seen as a bonus ahead of the remaining league fixtures which start back in CV6 on Saturday with the same opponents.