Keep the faith City, don't throw the hard work away

A week ago I said that we had two tough fixtures coming up against Birmingham and Derby but that with the form we were in, I wouldn't be surprised to see us pick something up at both games. How wrong was I?

Actually, we could very well have ended up with points from both games. Birmingham scored very late i and we dominated against Derby and yet came out of both pointless.

I'm not sure out of the two games, which was the toughest defeat to stomach. At St Andrews, Birmingham had the majority of possession and created far more than City but we were solid defensively until some slack marking allowed Franck Queudrue to score the winner.

There was a real sense that the team had underperformed and let the travelling fans down and Gary Johnson said he wanted to win at Derby for the fans. I'm not sure the players got the manager's message, as within a minute they were a goal down.

However, from that point on the Robins dominated but once again had to suffer a late killer blow. The performance was much improved and Gavin Williams' strike deserved to get at the very least a share of the spoils. Another lapse in concentration let Derby back in leading to a depressing journey home.

City have to be careful not to let all of their hard work over the last couple of months go to waste and need to get back to winning ways on Tuesday night at home against Coventry City.

Worryingly Cole Skuse and Dele Adebola are both carrying knocks, which forced them out of the team against Derby. Both have been star performers over the last couple of months and any prolonged absence for either would be a massive blow to any promotion challenge.

With Marvin Elliott out injured and a few weeks off returning to first team action, we are short of options in midfield.

Assuming that Skuse is unavailable on Tuesday night, I would play Gavin Williams in central midfield with Lee Johnson and play Ivan Sproule right and Michael McIndoe left.

This leaves us with a back four of Orr, Carey, Fontaine and McAllister and a front two of Maynard and Adebola. If Adebola is not fit then I would go with the physical presence of John Akinde as opposed to Stern John.

I would also look to bring David Noble back in from the wilderness. I don't pretend to know what goes on inside the club, and there may be an injury I am not aware of or another issue, but Noble is a class act and as he has often demonstrated can provide that piece of skill which can turn a game.

Whilst I'm desperate to see City beat Coventry on Tuesday, I will face a slight quandary as the Coventry City mascot that night will be a young lad, Daniel Turner who plays in the Warmley Rangers Under 8's side that I help to Manage. I hope Dan, his dad Rich and mum Mags enjoy the experience but that the Robins come away with the win.

After Coventry is an early afternoon kick off against Cardiff City next Saturday.

These games are always tight and the atmosphere often white hot. Lets hope that we can get back to winning ways and that by the time I'm writing this column next Saturday evening that I'm talking about two wins and six points.