- Coventry City have won the last three head-to-head meetings in the Championship including a 2-0 win at home to Rovers five months ago.
- Coventry City have won 10, drawn six and lost only five of their 21 Championship away games to date.
- Blackburn Rovers have won only four of their 21 home Championship games to date, drawing eight and losing nine.
Tired Rovers unlikely to stop table-topping Sky Blues
Back-to-back draws have not been ideal for either Blackburn Rovers or Coventry City’s momentum ahead of Friday’s Championship fixture at Ewood Park.
Rovers have drawn their last two matches, 0-0 at home to West Brom and 1-1 away at Stoke City, while Coventry have also drawn their previous two, 0-0 away at Hull City and 0-0 at home to Sheffield Wednesday. Despite their recent lack of goals, the Sky Blues are still top of the table on 85 points from 42 games, while Rovers remain in 19th spot on 48 from the same number of games played.
This game has some significance for both clubs as Coventry try to keep the promotion push going and Rovers seek to consolidate under new management. Michael O’Neill’s side are clearly in good shape after avoiding defeat in their last five games, two of which were victories, while Frank Lampard’s Coventry are also in decent form with two wins and two draws in their previous four.
Sky Blues’ system is superior to O’Neill’s pragmatic Rovers
But the Sky Blues’ superiority in this fixture and their away form in general should see them claim another victory in this contest. The way that Lampard has set up Coventry to play a structured, positional game with vertical progression and overloads wide is simply a cut above the pragmatic, risk-averse approach that O’Neill has installed at Ewood since taking over in February.
Lampard’s system allows Coventry to be patient and build up, but also to switch to an attacking gear and release their speedy forwards in a flash. Rovers are solid and well organised defensively, strong on set pieces and very good on the counter-attack, but lack the creativity or conviction to sustain attacks of their own.
Yuki Ohashi is Rovers’ top scorer in the Championship this season with only 8 goals from 42 appearances, although Denmark Under-21 star Mathias Joergensen has been their main threat in the previous five matches, scoring two of their four goals in that spell. Haji Wright is Coventry’s main man up front with 16 goals in 36 appearances in the Championship this term and can make all the difference in Friday’s clash.
Coventry can keep it tight against blunt hosts
Backing the away side to win at the slightly unfavourable odds of 97/100 looks our best bet here as Lampard’s side are on a great run of form that has seen them lose only one of their five most recent games.
Over 2.5 goals is coming in at 1/1, so that is too attractive to ignore given Coventry averages 1.95 goals per away game and concedes only 1.19 on the road in the Championship this year.
But Rovers score only 0.86 per home game and concede 1.19 on average in the Championship, which explains why the home side have drawn so many home games and won so few. So although a high-scoring match is likely, Coventry’s defensive strength and Rovers’ blunt attack lead us to believe the visitors will keep a clean sheet in this clash of two very different systems.
Both teams to score - No is coming in at 93/100 and we think that will be the case here.
