Sky Blues versus Cherries: When you’re smiling?

Coventry City look to end their long wait for a home win in League One when they face fellow strugglers AFC Bournemouth on Saturday at the Ricoh Arena.

Midfielder Carl Baker believes Mark Robins ‘has made the players smile again’ since taking over but the new manager has shown a ruthless streak this week, transfer-listing Kevin Malaga after only a few months with the club and issuing a warning in the process to those players who do not come up to his standards.

Robins was realistic enough in midweek to know that the Sky Blues were lucky to take a point from the match against MK Dons. Using a favoured phrase of a new manager he felt the game would have been lost a couple of weeks ago but that would still have been the outcome had the Dons taken their chances.

Still, the point made it four from two games and City ended well on Tuesday after Robins’ astute substitutions steadied the Sky Blue ship.

Nathan Cameron, Callum Ball and John Fleck were the players who came on in the latter stages and all have claims to start on Saturday. The return from injury of Kevin Kilbane, Jordan Clarke and Reece Brown are further options open to the manager.

Bournemouth, in poor form and under the caretaker management of Dennis Rofe, offer a great opportunity for the home side to take three points and show the way to a season that doesn’t just become a relegation battle.