Coventry City news from CoventryLive as Andy Turner opens up his notebook to take a look at what’s been happening on and off the field over the last few days
Coventry City’s pre-season gets into full swing on home soil this week with two eye-catching games at the CBS Arena.
First up is Premier League Everton on Tuesday (7.45pm), followed by Bundesliga side Werder Bremen on Saturday (3pm) before Mark Robins’ men finish things off with a behind-closed-doors test against AS Roma a week on Tuesday (Aug 6).
The City manager has deliberately chosen challenging opposition in the hope that it will get his players ready for the season ahead and enable them to hit the ground running when they kick-off the new season at Stoke City on Saturday, August 10 (12.30pm).
Fresh injury concern
Coventry City’s injury list is looking increasingly worrying following the weekend when Ellis Simms was the latest player forced to sit out a pre-season match. It’s not known at this stage the nature of Simms’ injury but it’s not thought to be serious and he was left back in the UK more as a precaution and therefore didn’t feature in the 2-0 defeat at SV Darmstadt 98 in Germany. It remains to be seen whether he will be fit to face his former club Everton at the CBS Arena on Tuesday night (7.45pm).
It meant more match time for under-21s striker Justin Obikwu, who has featured in every game so far.
Dovin’s debut
There was some good news on the injury front when latest summer signing Oliver Dovin recovered from a shoulder issue to make his non-competitive debut for the Sky Blues in Germany.
The 22-year-old goalkeeper, who joined the club for £1.6m from Swedish top flight side Hammarby last week, started the match against Darmstadt and got through 73 minutes along with the rest of the starting XI, keeping a clean sheet.
Ten changes were them made, including five development players, after which City conceded two late goals to suffer the first defeat of their friendly schedule.
Starting line-up: Oliver Dovin; Milan Van Ewijk, Joel Latibeaudiere, Luis Binks, Jake Bidwell, Josh Eccles (58, Jamie Allen), Jack Rudoni, Kasey Palmer, Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Justin Obikwu (85, Elliot Betjemann), Ephron Mason-Clark.
Changes at 73 mins: Ben Wilson, Jack Burroughs, Bobby Thomas, Liam Kitching, Jay Dasilva, Ryan Howley, Kai Andrews, Aiden Dausch, Fabio Tavares.
Nice moments
There were two notable moments during the match in Germany where more than 500 Sky Blue supporters made the trip. The first was a noisy rendition of City’s now well-established pre-match anthem, We’ll Live And Die In These Towns.
The second was the Darmstadt squad doing a lap of honour at the end of the match and going to the City fans and applauding them for making the long journey. There was no segregation on the day and all reports suggest there was a really nice atmosphere between both sets of supporters, who mingled and shared a drink and chat during the day.
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