Coventry City fans’ confidence of a direct return to the Premier League surged significantly at the weekend as the club took full advantage of their nearest rivals floundering around them.
With second placed Middlesbrough drawing at Blackburn and third and fourth placed Ipswich and Millwall cancelling each other out with a 1-1 draw at Portman Road, the Sky Blues secured another huge three points from a 3-0 win at Swansea to put more distance between themselves and the chasing pack with seven games to go.
City’s form would have to drop off a cliff at this late stage of proceedings for Frank Lampard’s men to mess things up now as they look favourites to be promoted as champions. Here’s what’s being said by the other clubs best placed to join them in the automatic promotion spots.
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Kim Hellberg - Middlesbrough
Hellberg admits his Middlesbrough players have to handle the pressure of the promotion race and expectation better - with signs they were struggling at Blackburn Rovers.
With only four wins in their last ten games, the pressure is on as Ipswich and Millwall battle for the second automatic promotion place.
For Boro, their struggle to score when teams play the low block has proved a particular difficult of late - as it was again at Ewood Park.
Kim Hellberg gives his players instructions
Kim Hellberg gives his players instructions(Image: Greig Cowie/Shutterstock)
“I’m not sitting here and saying, ‘we don’t mind’,” he said, speaking to TeessideLive. “Of course it’s frustrating. It’s emotions, and that’s the thing. That’s why you need to handle those things.
“I’ll work with the players. And I think sometimes you just need it to fall for you. We had four games in a row where we didn’t score a goal, and then we scored so many in a row.
“So sometimes you just need something to fall for you, and that’s a little bit of the thing now in those moments. During this time though, we’ve barely conceded any goals.
“At the beginning of the season, that was enough to celebrate, but then when you move forward and you see that we are very, very good, it stops being that to celebrate, and you start to want us to score goals. And that’s how it is.
“That’s the journey from being a team that wasn’t maybe expected to be in the top-two fight. And now we’re in there because they’ve been good, and then, like you said, all the hopes and all the things on it go higher.
“And that you need to handle. Of course, that’s something that we need to handle over the last seven games, because if we don’t score more, we’re not going to win so many of those seven games.”
Kieran McKenna - Ipswich Town
McKenna believes his players are in a good spot heading into the final eight games of the Championship season.
The Blues were held by promotion rivals Millwall at Portman Road, leaving both sides with 69 points. Town, who are in third, have superior goal difference and a game in hand.
It sets up for a mouth-watering finale to the campaign, and while McKenna is adamant that he still isn’t looking at the league table, he’s confident that Ipswich are well-placed to challenge for automatic promotion.
Kieran McKenna, Manager of Ipswich Town
Kieran McKenna, Manager of Ipswich Town(Image: Getty Images)
“Honestly, even still at this point we’re not really thinking as much about the table,” he explained, speaking to the East Anglian Daily Times. “It’s just seeing where we’re at as a group and I think there’s some big positives to take.
“That’s eight games in a really busy run for us [from the 5-3 defeat at Wrexham onwards]. Obviously, we had a few days training this week but we’re coming off a period where we had some really important players missing that whole chunk, and some unjust suspensions.
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“A few players out there today are carrying injuries and ideally we wouldn’t be using them, but because we’re missing other players, they’re putting themselves out there for the team.
“It’s been a challenging period and a big positive I take is the first half performance (against Millwall), because when you think about going into big games at the end of the season and how you manage the tension and just go out there and deliver on performance.
“I think that was a great template for how to do it in the first half today. If we can execute better on the last bit, then we give ourselves a great chance to win some important games.
“On the other hand, we know there’s other good teams and Millwall are one of them. Games can change really, really quickly and no-one’s going to make it easy for us. Millwall found a way to make it more difficult in that second half.
“It’s going to be a challenge, hopefully it’ll be exciting. We know we’ve got big games, big games at our stadium, tough away games, big derby match [v Norwich City]. There’s lots to look forward to. I think we’re glad to have the break now. Hopefully we’ll be in a strong position when we come back.”
Alex Neil - Millwall
Lions’ boss Neil is taking a ‘nothing to lose’ approach to his side’s push for promotion, telling his side to play without fear during his half-time team-talk in their 1-1 draw with Ipswich.
Millwall were dominated by a strong Town side for the first 45 minutes of the match, offering little going forward and deservedly going behind when Jack Clarke struck on the cusp of half-time.
Millwall boss Alex Neil
Millwall boss Alex Neil(Image: Ian Tuttle/Shutterstock)
Neil changed the press during the interval and replaced Macaulay Langstaff with Mihailo Ivanovic to provide additional physicality up front.
The tweaks had an immediate impact. Josh Coburn equalised with five minutes of the restart, then Ivanovic hit the bar with minutes remaining.
“At half-time, when we were 1-0 down, the topic of conversation was – we haven’t got anything to lose,” Neil said, speaking to Southwark News. “Get after the game, go and show what we can do, and I didn’t really think that we played the first half with that lack of fear, if that makes any sense.
“What I will say, Ipswich are the best team at home in the division. They’ve got an unbelievable squad. They bring a lot of really good, strong players on. But second half, I thought our lads more than matched that, hence the reason why we managed to get a result. But it’s certainly not to be sniffed at coming here and getting a good result because they’re a really strong squad.”
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