Mark Robins edges towards strongest line-up – Coventry City predicted team v Sheffield Wednesday.
Coventry City predicted team from CoventryLive as Sky Blues reporter Andy Turner attempts to second guess Mark Robins’ starting line-up to face Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend.
Coventry City passed their first task of the new week with flying colours when they put three goals past in-form Blackburn Rovers to secure a welcome and much-needed victory on Tuesday night.
With the three points firmly in the bag, attention now turns to Saturday’s fixture against Sheffield Wednesday and the opportunity for the Sky Blues to back up their midweek win with another big performance and result to confirm the club’s season is finally up and running.
But how will Mark Robins approach his team selection? Logic says stick with a winning team and let those lads who did so well against Rovers do it all again against the Owls. Simple enough, you would assume, but when he took that course of action following the outstanding effort against Tottenham it came back to bite him on the backside against Swansea, the manager later admitting that, with the benefit of hindsight, he got it wrong.
But things have changed dramatically since then and a pitiful showing against Leeds means that he probably found out a lot more about his players and is, hopefully, edging closer to knowing his strongest starting line-up.
That would almost certainly include Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, but with the Japanese winger having been stretchered off with a deep gash to his leg on Tuesday evening it’s fair to assume he won’t be back until after the international break.
First things first, starting in goal we can expect Ben Wilson to continue between the posts after keeping the team’s first clean sheet of the season with a commanding display against Blackburn.
The same goes for the back four where Milan van Ewijk looked back to his best, both going forward on the overlap and getting back to defend with his blistering pace, while Jake Bidwell clearly has the edge over Jay Dasilva at left-back, adding some no-nonsense steel while also venturing forward to good effect to put in quality crosses to the box. A goal also almost certainly cemented his place in the starting line-up for the weekend.
Bobby Thomas and Liam Kitching looked back on it in midweek and have the opportunity of re-establishing their central defensive partnership from last season, showing plenty of aggression and determination, albeit not always getting it right.