Coventry vs West Brom - Match preview
Carlos Corberan is considering his defensive options as patched-up Albion head to Coventry tonight nursing an ever-growing absentee list.
Not long after coming to terms with a painful collection of attacking injury victims, the head coach is now pondering a a rethink at the back to cope with some potentially key omissions.
Much at the CBS Arena this evening depends on the availability of this season’s leading centre-back Cedric Kipre, whose knee injury from last Tuesday’s win over QPR is, mercifully, not as serious as first feared.
But the 26-year-old still remains a doubt for the televised Sky Blues contest, while central defensive colleague Semi Ajayi (ankle) is almost-certain to miss out.
It leaves Corberan short in his usual shape of a five-man defence. The Spaniard is confident, though, he still has options to line up in with a back five or switch to a back four this evening, citing an experienced pairing of Kyle Bartley and Erik Pieters for the latter. A back four, however, has been rare this season.
Should Corberan wish to stick to his five-man backline, it would require a tweak and either switching Okay Yokuslu from midfield, using a either full-back Darnell Furlong or Conor Townsend centrally, or opt for youngster Caleb Taylor, as of yet unproven in the Championship.
Corberan said of his options: “Yes true, sometimes the centre-back (options) depend if you play with four or with five. You need more specific centre-back if you play with four, or you can use more full-backs if you play with five.
“But still we have Pieters and Bartley as specific centre-backs that allow us to play with four, or to find an alternative option to play with five. I like to have in my mind both possibilities to play the game and we still have options to do it.”
Kipre has been in fine form this season and fears of a lengthy lay-off were fortunately eased last week when scan results returned no serious damage to his knee issue. It is anticipated there is belief the Ivorian has come through weekend training to feature this evening, with a final decision to be made.
It’s a case of as you were for Albion in attack, with Jeremy Sarmiento not expected back until Saturday at home to Hull at the earliest. John Swift and Josh Maja are due back later in November after the international break, with Daryl Dike sidelined until the new year.
Hosts Coventry are, surprisingly, down in 20th and winless in three, including a poor defeat at Rotherham last Wednesday. Mark Robins’ men have yet to get their season up and running after losing talismanic duo Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer over the summer,but are boosted by the return to fitness of ex-Villa youngster and talented creator Callum O’Hare after 10 months out.
Corberan is a big fan of Robins and noted how the Sky Blues can be versatile in their set up. He said: “We analyse the opponents to give the players information that when something changes they can adapt to something unpredictable.
“For example their last game, Coventry have been playing with a line of five in all the games but in the last 15 minutes they change to a line of four, something they didn’t do before, 4-2-3-1 or 4-2-2-2 with many players in the middle. If I am the Rotherham coach I would never expect this. You need to have the adaptability to find a solution with things changing.
“He’s an excellent coach with an excellent career and plays excellent football this year and last year, every game with them has been very, very difficult to play, at home and away.
“We need to be ready to face the two shapes they have been playing, a line of five or line of four, depending on how they want to play.
“I think in this league it is key how you manage from the result you get and the fact they lost is only going to increase his desire to change the result. I can never control how results affect the opponents, we can only control how it affects us.”
