By CovSid67
January 7 2009

Goals from the two Leon's, McKenzie and Best, helped Coventry City overcome a potentially tricky fixture against Kidderminster Harriers, in a fixture that saw a debut for 17-year-old Curtis Wynter. A crowd of only 13,652 was disappointing, though with rumours that postponements of Birmingham v Wolves and Walsall's home fixture seeing a few more added to the away section, it could have been worse!

Another make-shift back four, this time including a soon-to-be-retiring left-back at left-back (Captain for the day), a right-back at the centre of the defence, alongside the last choice central defender likely to be called upon, and a 17-year-old, 'play anywhere but prefer to play in the centre of defence' making his debut at right-back!

Curtus Wynter's debut was solid enough, and while some of his passing failed to find the target (Which puts him on a par with the rest of the squad!), he looked extremely comfortable, despite being played out of position.

Michael Doyle's inclusion appeared to lessen the effectiveness of Gunnarsson, though Robbie Simpson enjoyed possibly his best display since joining Coventry City, before injury (A dead leg) forced him from the pitch late on. Eastwood again looked out of sorts, though with the amount of bugs, etc, going around, maybe this was due to illness. Or maybe not.

The bench for the day was made up of two players returning from loans: Konstantopolous and Thornton; a player returning from a virus: Fox; a player being rested because he's knocking on a bit: Morrison; and three youngsters: Cain, Fraser, and Walker. With Coventry making harder work of disposing of KH than they should have, none of the youngsters made it onto the pitch.

The home side could have been a goal up within a minute, with Eastwood seeing an effort saved by Bartlett, while Kidderminster never really threatened in the first 45 minutes. Failure to score saw a fair few of the home fans amongst the crowd of 13,652 (Which included The Enemy's bassist, Andy) boo their team off at half-time.

Goal one (On 51 minutes) came about after what looked to be a poor Doyle corner found its way to McKenzie, who fired past Bartlett in the Harriers goal. Relief all round! (Well, on three sides of the ground anyway).

Goal two (Ten minutes from time) came about after a Harriers corner, which saw Coventry finally leave an outlet up-field, cleared to said player, Eastwood, and his quality pass found Best, who after opting to take on the entire Kidderminster defence, fired the ball past Bartlett.

Best turned his back on the Telegraph stand, opting not to celebrate his goal, though with Notts Forest having sacked Colin Calderwood, the manager so desperate to sign him, and new-boss Billy Davies opting to sign Nathan Tyson up long-term, Best has announced he's happy where he is.

With fairly little going on on the pitch to write home about, the main concern for the day was the rumour that Kieran Westwood's absence was because he had just signed for Tottenham. Or maybe Arsenal. Or that said clubs were interested, as were Newcastle and/or Everton. At the time of writing, KW is still a Coventry City player, and was merely missing due to suffering from a 'runny bottom'....

The reward for victory (Against a side who apparently have a proud FA Cup tradition because they won a match against Birmingham City in 1994) was another potentially tricky fixture against non-league opposition, away to Torquay United, on January 24th. Torquay's manager was said to be disappointed with the draw....

Team: Marshall, Wynter, Hall, Turner, Wright, Simpson (Morrison 82), Doyle, Gunnarsson, McKenzie (Fox 69), Best, Eastwood. SNU: Konstantopolous, Thornton, Walker, Fraser, Cain.