Coventry City star makes honest Sky Blues admission as team head for Leeds United test
A Coventry City star has made an honest Sky Blues admission ahead of Saturday’s clash against Leeds United at Elland Road.
Coventry were only denied promotion to the Premier League by a heart-breaking defeat on penalties to Luton Town in the 2022-23 Championship play-off final and were among this summer’s leading fancies for promotion after last season’s ninth-placed finish.
Coventry, though, have taken just five points from their first six games of the new Championship season and midfielder Josh Eccles has fronted up to his team’s shortcomings and thrown down the gauntlet ahead of next weekend’s clash at Leeds.
The Sky Blues impressed in last midweek’s Carabao Cup clash at home to Tottenham Hotspur who needed two late goals to eventually seal a 2-1 victory but Mark Robins’ side then suffered a third defeat of the new Championship season on Saturday via a 2-1 loss at home to Swansea City.
The Swans raced into a 2-0 lead through early goals from Liam Cullen and Ollie Cooper for a win that left the Sky Blues sixth-bottom and just one point off the drop zone.
Speaking to the club’s official website, Eccles admitted: “It’s very disappointing, to come off the performance from the Spurs game on Wednesday to perform how we did today for 30 minutes. We shot ourselves in the foot and gave them a two-goal lead in the first half and it gives us a mountain to climb. We did get better, but it’s still not good enough.
“We were expecting a lot better with the team we’ve got and the way we played in pre-season. Things will start to click. We’ve had a few decent performances, and we have loads of more levels to go and I’m hoping they’re coming in the future.”
Challenging his side to fight their way back, Eccles added: “When we got the goal back, I thought we were building momentum and starting to get some passing and phases of play together.
“We had chances in the game, but we’re allowing teams to have two or three chances in a game and they’re putting them away and we’re having seven or eight and we’re only putting one away, so we have to do something about that. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and think what are we going to do with ourselves this season and are we going to fight or not.”