Coventry City's Stephen Mfuni winds up the Newcastle fans with his goal celebration
Coventry City's Stephen Mfuni winds up the Newcastle fans with his goal celebration
Coventry City hauled themselves out of the relegation zone and moved up to 14th place in the Premier League table after securing their first back-to-back wins since their return to the top flight.
It brought a winning feeling back to the CBS Arena with an atmosphere reminiscent of so many wonderful occasions during last season’s Championship title charge.
Goals from Jack Rudoni and Sidiki Cherif early in each half were added to by late strikes from substitutes Ellis Simms and Stephen Mfuni – the latter two coming in the last ten minutes after Sven Botman had reduced the deficit to 2-1 midway through the second period.
Here are some of the big talking points from the Sky Blues' brilliant 4-1 victory.
Bucking the Newcastle trend
The last time these two sides met was over 16 years ago when Newcastle won 4-1 at St James’ Park in the Championship. Their previous league meeting was back in the Premier League in 2001 when United thumped City 3-1 in the North East.
And a quick check of the history books showed that the omens weren’t good going into this latest fixture. Head to head, they have played each other 19 times in the league dating back to the 1990s, during which time the Magpies had scored a whopping 44 goals, including five occasions where they have scored four and one when they bagged five. Coventry, in contrast, had only managed 18 in reply in a period in which United racked up 12 wins to City’s four.
So it was extremely welcome to buck that particular trend while keeping the high scoring theme going.
Coventry City brought that winning feeling back to the Coventry Building Society Arena
Coventry City brought that winning feeling back to the Coventry Building Society Arena
Narrative change
Backing up the Forest win – a gutsy display with elements of luck – with a more convincing three points has completely changed the narrative from a neutral perspective.
Having lost their opening four games without a single goal scored and ten conceded, most pundits and outside observers had City written off and down as early favourites for the drop. But all of a sudden a high scoring win on home soil will have plenty sitting up and taking notice of the Sky Blues who have shown that the CBS Arena is going to be a tough place for opposition teams to visit this season.
It’s only one win, of course, but it will have been huge in terms of restoring some much needed confidence in a group of players who are clearly getting better with every week on the training pitch and every match that goes by.
This was a win built on success in both boxes, with the defence and wide players needing to dig in at times, in particular to stop the overload of promising England full-back Lewis Hall and wide man Harvey Barnes down the left, while particular credit went to man of the match Bobby Thomas.
And at the other end it was encouraging to see four different players on the scoresheet and finally taking the chances that have been coming City’s way.
Jack Rudoni celebrates scoring for Coventry City against Newcastle United
Jack Rudoni celebrates scoring for Coventry City against Newcastle United(Image: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire)
Teenager steps up
Sidiki Cherif has given Lampard plenty of food for thought ahead of next week’s trip to Tottenham when first choice striker Taiwo Awoniyi will be available again after serving his three match ban.
The 19-year-old summer signing impressed on his first Premier League start, first winning the early penalty for the Sky Blues by being alive in the box, and then doubling his team’s lead on a night when he could have had two or three.
Managing to somehow thread the ball through a crowd of Newcastle bodies for his goal, the teenager then steered a shot well wide when all he needed to do was hit the target to further extend City’s second half lead.
“He’ll be disappointed with the one he missed because all strikers are,” said Lampard, “and I said to him, ‘no problem,’ because that’s good. He got there, he’s hungry and he’ll go again. So he’s got that little edge to him, in a good way. And yeah, I’m delighted for him for confidence-wise. If he can do that, I know that feeling of what that’ll bring him. And we need that because Taiwo’s been out suspended for a few games.”
Sidiki Cherif of Coventry City celebrates after scoring the second goal of the game
Sidiki Cherif of Coventry City celebrates after scoring the second goal of the game
Not so much coaching genius
Frank Lampard freely admits that his players will be more of a transition side this season, often forced to sit in and defend for long periods and then look to break away on the counter attack.
But when asked whether it took courage to position three players on the halfway line when defending deep and from set-pieces with a seemingly fragile 1-0 lead, the head coach admitted that hadn’t been his game plan.
“Well it’s probably because I didn’t manage to scream loud enough to tell one or two of them to get back,” he said.
“So I can’t claim every part of that but at times we do leave at least one or two players up the pitch because I think it will occupy their defenders, as such, and in this game of transition sometimes you can defend with maybe eight players and kind of go, ‘yeah, we’ll give them a problem of transition.’
“It’s something that’s going to be a big part of our game this year so game by game we’ll look at that in a different way. “Generally, I want them to come back more but sometimes in games like this it is good because as long as one player comes and connects themselves to the team, if you can get that first pass right it can be very effective.
“And now we have players and profile, which we tried to recruit, and Cherif’s a good example of that who has the running power and capacity to be able to make that work. And when you’ve got Thomas-Asante, Mason-Clark and Rudoni they can do that. So it’s not always coaching genius, it’s about having players that can actually get out of those situations and get you up the pitch.”
Mfuni the wind-up merchant
Stephen Mfuni impressed on his Premier League debut against Forest with an accomplished performance out of position – slotting in on the right of a back three.
Left out in the next game against Newcastle on Monday night as Frank Lampard reverted to a back four, the precocious talent continued to show his versatility when he went on in midfield for the last seven minutes and provided the icing on the cake with City’s fourth goal.
Coventry City's Stephen Mfuni shushes the Newcastle United fans after adding a fourth goal
Coventry City's Stephen Mfuni shushes the Newcastle United fans after adding a fourth goal
Driving forward and then dropping his shoulder to glide past his marker and unleash a left-footed shot across the keeper and into the far bottom corner, the 18-year-old then showed a different side to his character with his celebration.
Lampard spoke afterwards about him being such a good natured personality off the pitch but when the ball hit the back of the net the first thing he did was wheel away in the direction of the travelling fans, cupping his ear and then shushing them with a finger on lips gesture rather than make a beeline to celebrate with the home fans in Singers Corner.
Supporters love a bit of outhousery but few would have seen that coming from the baby-faced teenager.
“Steph’s just got this incredible mentality where he’s so amiable around the place,” said Lampard. “He’s mates with everybody already and got this incredible character. And he’s a really good player who’s going to go a long, long way.”