Coventry City proved to be Nigel Pearson’s final victory as Bristol City manager, as the Sky Blues were experiencing a challenging start to the campaign and despite largely outplaying the Robins, left Ashton Gate with a head-scratching 1-0 defeat.

A further fallow period followed but since that moment, as significant change has taken place at City with the appointment of Liam Manning, Coventry’s season has very much kicked into gear.

Seven wins over a 11-match undefeated run has rocketed them into the play-off positions in the Championship; a stretch of results that includes draws against Leeds United and Southampton and wins over Leicester City and Sunderland.

Mark Robins’ side are increasingly looking like an elite outfit at this level and with a number of individuals in outstanding form, a clean bill of health and a fervent crowd behind them, this represents a huge challenge for City to try and overcome

To found out a bit more about Tuesday’s night’s opponents, we spoke to Coventry Live’s long-standing Sky Blues correspondent Andy Turner …

Was Coventry’s difficult start to the season and subsequent revival simply a result of the player churn in the summer and everyone then having to get used to each other?

Yes. It really was, literally that. They lost their two best players in Viktor Gyokores and Gustavo Hamer amid 14 departures and brought in 11. Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, for example, although he’s Japanese he’s been playing in Belgium and didn’t speak very much English, and it was just a period of adjustment for him. But he’s on fire at the minute. He’s settled in, got into his rhythm, got used to the way they play, the pace of the Championship and he’s absolutely flying and the fans love him.

He’s just one, Milan van Ewijk is another. Arguably one of the best full-backs in the Championship now and he’s just been brilliant. He started off really well but then he plateaued a bit, experienced a dip, but then he came back again and he’s one of the first picks now and a has real understanding with Sakamoto down the right as an overlapping full-back.

The other big one, I guess, is Haji Wright. A USA international who was playing in Turkey, so it was a bit of a culture change for him. He had all the raw ingredients and looked the part but he just needed a bit of time. He nearly had a stunning debut at Leicester on the opening day of the season, when they gave the Foxes a really good game. But he’s come good and shown he’s a quality player.

There are others who are struggling a bit like Ellis Simms. He’s done okay, and he’s contributed to the team but he’s not scoring many goals. So he’s still finding his feet.

Has Mark Robins changed anything he’s done, even when results were going against them, or has he kept what he’s doing consistent?

He has changed the formation. So they’ve gone from a back three to a back four, and that’s coincided with the upturn in results. Robins maintained they were playing well, and I guess he had a point to a degree, because in the first 2-3 months they really weren’t picking up the results that they felt their performances deserved.

It’s now a 4-2-3-1, or a 4-3-3, and that’s really suited them. Van Ewijk and Jay Dasilva started the season as wing-backs, but the latter is now out of the side for Jake Bidwell and full-back really suits him. So their settled back four is those two with Bobby Thomas and Liam Kitching as the centre-halves, and Kyle McFadzean has now gone out of the side.

He lost his mother in October and needed a week or so off on compassionate leave and, basically, by the team he had come back they had changed to a back four and he hasn’t been seen in the starting line-up since. He’d been a stalwart of the back three but because of his age, he’s 37 now, he can only really play in a back three.

Kitching has stepped up and become the player they hoped he’d be when they signed him; an aggressive leader, who could one day captain the team. And that’s all coincided with the upsurge in form.

Callum O’Hare’s come back and he’s now scoring goals. He was a really good player before he got injured but the one thing he was lacking was his goals to chances ratio was poor. He used to get chance after chance after chance and he just wouldn’t put them away, but now he’s got six.

They’re scoring goals from all over. Wright and Matty Godden are top scorers (both have nine) but they’re not really scoring that many, whereas Ben Sheaf has four, Sakamoto has six, O’Hare’s got six.

It’s interesting you say performances not getting results because the defeat at Ashton Gate in October proved exactky that…

They had a bit of a wobble after that. It was the first of four straight defeats. After Bristol, they went to Rotherham and lost 2-0, then they lost 2-0 to West Brom at home and went to Preston and were beaten 3-2; although they never win at Preston. The following game against Stoke was a 0-0 draw and that’s when Robins went to a back four and that’s when it all changed, really.

What’s been the reaction from the fanbase throughout what’s been an up and down season, albeit with things now on an upward trend?

Most of the rational-thinking fans have stood firm and believed that it would come good.

Robins has been at pains to reassure people that there’s a process, we just need to give it time with so many new players and everything will come good. Well, that’s exactly what’s happened.

Everybody is on a high at the minute. There’s a real feelgood factor among the fans and back around the place and that was even before they got back into the play-off places. Now they’re in there, that feeling is gathering pace all the time and there’s a real sense of momentum that they could go all the way into the play-offs again this season.

You get the odd grumble here and there but even if they’d have had a consolidatory season, I think most fans would have accepted that – you lose your two best players, what do you expect – but after that period of adjustment they’ve really hit the ground running, which is a remarkable thing, really.

They sell out most of their away allocation but their home gates now, they’re averaging 25,000 and the atmosphere is incredible.

A customary check in on the City old boys; you mention Jay has been out of the team recently but how has Kasey Palmer been faring on the pitch?

Kasey’s been playing really well and is really popular, is contributing, he’s exciting and makes things happen. He works really hard and he’s one of their star players.

Jay had an amazing run at the start of the season and it felt like the writing was on the wall for Jake Bidwell. Interestingly, if you go back a year ago, last January when Coventry first tried to get Jay, Bidwell had been earmarked to go to Birmingham and so, had Jay joined, he would have left. But the deal broke down. Then Jay came in the summer, immediately cemented his place in the team but had a dip, they changed formation and Bidwell got back in and the full-back has suited him better.

But Jay has still featured and quite often comes on in the second half as an impact player. And he’s quite often come on higher up the pitch, wide of the attacking three, in front of Bidwell.

You’ve mentioned a few of them already, but if you had to pick out individuals who are really performing at a high level who City will have to stop in some capacity, who will it be?

There are three, really. They’re a real threat down the right, which is a combination of Sakamoto and Van Ewijk, scoring and creating goals for others.

So it’s those two but also O’Hare who’s bang on form as well. He’s a real menace. He’s lively, he never stops running, he’s so good at receiving the ball with his back to goal and turning, moving onto the front foot and running with it. Very good in tight situations, moves the ball so quickly and now he’s arriving in the box and can find the back of the net consistently. Just a really good player and is so effective.

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