Jim's column 1.9.2012

Another turbulent week in the history of Coventry City ended with an excellent 3-2 League Cup victory over local rivals Birmingham City presided over by the new caretaker manager Richard Shaw. Andy Thorn became the tenth full-time Coventry City manager to leave the club since the club were relegated from the Premier League in 2001. Since being promoted to manager on the departure of Aidy Boothroyd in February 2011 his team have a pretty appalling record with only twelve wins in 59 league wins and whilst many of the club’s followers will not be surprised by his departure, many are questioning the timing. After fifty years of following the Sky Blues I believe there is never a good time or a bad time to sack a manager. On Tuesday night the team responded with their best performance for months, pulling off easily the club’s best Cup result since 2009.

Andy’s record in charge does not stand up to scrutiny against his predecessors – he has easily the worst win percentage and for all his aim of playing attractive football, the worst goals per game in the period.

	Pl	W	D	L	For	Agst	GD	Points	Wins %	Points %	Goals per game
John Sillett	128	44	37	47	143	169	-26	169	34.38%	44.01%	1.12
Terry Butcher	49	16	11	22	56	60	-4	59	32.65%	40.14%	1.14
Don Howe	19	3	8	8	10	18	-8	17	15.79%	29.82%	0.53
Bobby Gould	54	16	19	19	66	73	-7	67	29.63%	41.36%	1.22
Phil Neal	58	18	18	22	56	74	-18	72	31.03%	41.38%	0.97
Ron Atkinson	64	14	24	26	64	92	-28	66	21.88%	34.38%	1.00
Gordon Strachan	183	52	52	79	203	262	-59	208	28.42%	37.89%	1.11
Roland Nilsson	40	19	5	16	56	48	8	62	47.50%	51.67%	1.40
Gary McAllister	68	17	25	26	73	91	-18	76	25.00%	37.25%	1.07
Eric Black	23	11	3	9	38	24	14	36	47.83%	52.17%	1.65
Peter Reid	29	9	8	12	36	45	-9	35	31.03%	40.23%	1.24
Micky Adams	90	31	24	35	113	124	-11	117	34.44%	43.33%	1.26
Iain Dowie	43	16	9	18	49	63	-14	57	37.21%	44.19%	1.14
Chris Coleman	107	30	35	42	112	140	-28	125	28.04%	38.94%	1.05
Aidy Bothroyd	36	11	8	17	38	46	-8	41	30.56%	37.96%	1.06
Andy Thorn	59	12	21	26	61	81	-20	57	20.34%	32.20%	1.03
League games only

Shaw’s first game in charge must have been a dream come true. Not only did his team, boosted by some high level individual performances, knock out a side from a higher division, but they also came from behind for the first time since September 2009. Then a late Leon Best goal gave City a 3-2 win at Watford. You have to go back to January 2009 to find the last time the Sky Blues came from behind to win at home – against Blackpool when Beuzelin and Mifsud scored in a 2-1 win. Neither Boothroyd nor Thorn managed this in their time in charge.

Several people have asked me about the frequency of lost leads under Andy Thorn and in his 59 league games in charge the team scored the first goal on 29 occasions whilst conceding first on 27 occasions. However the Sky Blues  only went on to win 12 games and lost the lead on 20 occasions (drawing 12 games and losing eight). As I said they failed to come from behind to win but on 10 occasions they fell behind but won a point. In statistical terms City won only 41% of games where they took the lead but lost 67% of games when they conceded first.

Last Saturday, in the 2-2 draw with Bury, the club recorded their lowest home league crowd (10,285) for eighteen years. Not only was it the lowest league crowd at the Ricoh but also the lowest since relegation from the Premiership in 2001. The last time there was a crowd under 10,500 was in October 1994 for an evening game against Ipswich when 9,509 watched a 2-0 City victory. The presence of Sky Television’s cameras probably kept the crowd low that night but at least City won, with goals from John Wark (og) and Paul Cook (a penalty). You have to go back to September 1993 for a lower Saturday home crowd. In Bobby Gould’s final home game against Southampton there were only 9,837 in Highfield Road to witness Phil Babb’s late equaliser rescue a point following Simon Charlton’s earlier goal.