COVENTRY VS MIDDLESBROUGH | Opposition Show with @SimonLillibury | Boro Breakdown

Coventry versus Middlesbrough, first versus second. A match which probably we'll both watch behind the back of our sofa. I'm joined by Simon from ThatCovPod, and if you watch the Sporting Untitled as well, you'll see him there to get the lowdown on Coventry this season and the game on Monday. Simon, looking at this game on Monday in isolation, how are you feeling about it? Not great, mate, to be honest. There's a lot of ways to look at this game. I would look towards our recent form and be very, very concerned. One point in our last three, 12 points in our last 10 games, which is like edge of the relegation zone form. Borough obviously won six in a row, look absolutely superb right now. So it's quite frightening when you look at it that way. But on the other hand, if I want to be more positive, Cov have a really good record against Middlesbrough in the playoffs, obviously getting to Wembley, final day of the season last season, beating you at the CBS. We're really good against Borough and our home form has been very good this season up until recently, almost perfect. Lost to Ipswich and then drew 0-0 with Oxford recently, but that Ipswich defeat is our only one at the CBS this season. I've been negative most of the week and now it's the weekend. Maybe I'm trying to convince myself to be a little bit more positive. But what I would say is what we've seen over the last two months watching Coventry has not been a top of the table side and has not been an automatic promotion side either. We haven't looked great. And if that continues and you turn up and play like you did against Sheffield United, it could be quite a statement from Borough to go top of the league and five points clear. As I say about the form from the last two months, what's been the catalyst for that decline in performance? I wish I could tell you and I wish I could tell Frank Lampard as well. Don't know, mate, honestly. Don't know exactly what's happened. There's been a number of things that probably contributed to it. Brandon Thomas Sansay got injured for about six, seven weeks, and I don't think we realised how important he was to our team. I think he'd scored 10 goals before his injury and then missed about seven weeks. He was playing when we were absolutely flying 10 wins in 11. Giarradone's shoulder injury doesn't look like he's come back the same player. He was our best player last season. I think all club fans would agree with that. And this season, we just haven't seen it. He looks a bit sluggish. He's not taking men on. He's not winning headers. He dislocated his shoulder at Oxford last season when he scored with his head, and he doesn't really go for the ball in the same way. And we've lost confidence. We just have lost confidence over the last couple of months, result by result. Got beaten by Ipswich 2-0 and 3-0, which doesn't help when you think you're the best team in the league, and then you get quite a reality check like that in a couple of weeks in December. And we've lost a lot of games when we've taken the lead away from home. We can't keep a clean sheet up until this Saturday. It was no clean sheet in eight or nine games. It's no away win in eight, I think, at the moment as well. And we don't know our best team. So that's an issue for Frank Lampard to solve. And I'd love to be able to click my fingers and get the team that turned out in October and beat you at the Riverside back out and take you on on Monday. But we've seen quite a lot of football now, and we are slowly getting worse. It's really concerning. I'm trying not to be too negative on it, because I know you want me to, you know, turn up and give you a really good game and have a really good battle. But what we've seen in recent months has been and now they are finally top of the league and Coventry be pretty, pretty average. It'll take something special to turn that around on Monday, but it's not impossible. Coventry win 4-0. You've ruined my score prediction. There's a good moment on this podcast, really, where I've had opposition shows come on and they say, oh, we're garbage, everything's falling apart, and then they go on to win. So there's probably that in mind. But with that in mind, do you think your definition of success this season has changed because of the bad run? Instead of becoming champions anymore, you think it's automatic soft playoffs? Has that started to slowly decline over the last couple of months? It changed at the start of the season. We have always been a team that needs to finish in the top six, and that would be a successful season. And Doug King said three out of five years, we want to be in the playoffs. Hopefully one of those games we can get over the line. Didn't happen last season, didn't happen two seasons, three seasons ago against Luton either. But when you're up against the parachute teams, as you guys know, you can't really say we're going to be a top, we're going to win the league, or we're going to finish in the top two. It's just not really feasible. Even now, we think Ipswich are knocking on the door. They'll probably come strong. They're averaging two points a game recently. It's very difficult to complete with that, you know, filler jeans out and they're bringing Jack Clark. We can't do that. It's not the same game, is it? For either of us. But when you win 10 games in 11 at the start of the season, and you're, what was it? 10 points clear of third or second at one point, don't even know exactly. You do think we need to try and win the league. I don't think Cobb fans are that bothered. I'm sure Borough fans are probably in the same boat about actually winning the championship. I think we now just are desperate to finish in the top two by hook or by crook, however we can try and get it done. Obviously, if we drop into the playoffs, or God forbid, even lower, it'll be a disaster, right, from the position we were in and we know that, and we've bottled it and all of that. I understand that. So yeah, potentially expectations have changed slightly. If we finish in the top two, it is a massively, massively successful season. And it doesn't really matter where you get your points in that season. We got loads, 10 wins in 11, I keep saying it. That is a ridiculous winning run that you guys are almost trying to repeat now. It doesn't really matter too much when you get your points in the season, as long as you get to that kind of, I don't know what it'll be, 85, 86, 87 points this season that will get you in the top two. But we need something special to make that happen now. Ipswich have a game in hand and are five points behind. We've obviously got quite a few tough fixtures coming up as well with playing you guys at home. West Brom away looks a bit simpler, excuse me, but then it's Sheffield United away in midweek. So it's a bit tricky for us at the minute, but I think this game against Borough is the perfect game for us right now. And that might not make any sense to you, but we're either going to turn our season around or we're going to get beaten quite heavily and have to change something to try and get promoted. We can't keep going like this. We can't keep with these tepid performances and conceding goals and not sorting out the defence. If we get beaten heavily, I think it'll mean a change of system and hopefully improved results and maybe an injection of something else. If we win, we're back top of the league and I think we can draw a line over this horrendous Christmas period in January and try and go again. So yeah, looking forward to it either way, to be honest, mate. Promotion, promotion has to be the aim and that will be success. If you don't get promoted, do you think Lampard is under pressure at all? It's crazy to say really, because you are like top two, top six, exactly where you should be. But then to lose the ground that you have, the form that you're seeing, how they're playing at the moment, has it started to mount up on Lampard a little bit and he's under pressure from the fans to actually be successful? I think Doug King might say, well, you know what? You've had your chance. You're in a really good position. You've been bottled. See you later. I don't think Doug King will say that. As an owner, I think he took a bit of a gamble on Lampard, but it was very much his choice and it's gone brilliantly so far. We were the best team in 2025 by an absolute mile and I know that means and counts for absolutely nothing, but we won 10 games from January to February to get takers from... Lampard was appointed. We were 17th. We finished fifth, I think it was, last season. Superb, superb. This season, obviously in 2025, won so many games, top of the league. I think the issue with Lampard, not that he's under pressure or many fans are like Lampard out or anything like that, he can't keep doing the same thing and getting the same results. That would be the definition of insanity. If we stick to playing 4-2-3-1 and we change the wingers and we put Ellis Sims on for Hattierite or Hattierite on for Ellis Sims and we keep conceding so many chances and we keep getting beaten away from home, if he keeps doing that for the rest of the season, patience will run very, very thin and we won't get promoted. If he can reinvigorate this squad, I don't even know if it necessarily hinges on promotion. We really want promotion this year. We've had such a good start and it would be a disappointment if we don't get there from this position. But if he shows some tactical flexibility and tries to do different things and we show something a bit different when we're losing games or we see out an away, difficult away game, which we haven't been able to do recently, you'd have to say we're evolving a little bit. I don't think his position's under scrutiny really at all right now, but either we win on Monday and we're back to our best and you let him do what he wants and you say, right, you're back. Let's go. Let's make this squad. Obviously, Agnieszka's coming in January. We didn't see him against Oxford. He could be a real key figure who could turn around the midfield, allow us to get more of a physical kind of specimen in there, winning the ball back, helping out Matty Garns who's just getting overran at the minute. That could be a big addition and we don't know yet because we haven't seen him. And then the 4-2-3-1 could work better, but it needs to turn around in terms of results. You can't have a run of 12 points out of 10 games again. If we have another run in our next 10 games of 12 points, what will it be? Sixth? Fifth? I don't even know. Genuinely, like, worrying. Yeah, I think Plofs has nailed, really, for Coventry, to be honest. I think you could probably say that. You said it now. I agree with you, mate. It should be, it should be. Yeah, even with us, it's nailed. We're going to be there coming into the season unless something disastrous happens now. Top five, probably, for the pair of us. I think that sixth spot could be anyone's. It could be Southampton's, Chef United's. It could be anyone's, based on, like, the performances, people have won, even Wrexham on the final day for us as well. We've got Wrexham, so that'd be an interesting game, or at least a big one. Hollywood, as Sky would say. So I think that's kind of nailed. I think for automatics, yeah, I feel like now it's a position for Cov We need to win about, what, nine, eight or nine of the next 15 games to do it. Yeah, eight or nine. And I think you'd be comfortable in coming up with us. It would be only right, Simon, if we did go up together. You know, being together for so long now, we may as well go up together. We haven't asked you to be our Valens on this weekend. Yeah, I'm sure there should be a post about that on the social media. Together forever, Covenborough. We can be together, Simon. It's fine. No one will notice. Just don't tell our wives. But for looking ahead to Monday, you said the 4-2-3-1. Who is going to be playing? I know you said on your show, if you haven't watched my show with Simon, well, Simon's show with me, sorry. Other way around. Just taking over that cough pod now, aren't I? But you said about four players are probably named on the team sheet who you'd say are definite. So who would you think, who would you like to see start on Monday in that 4-2-3-1 shape? I... It's very hard from my point of view because I think the best way to try and beat Barra might be to go to a back five. I think you might have lost two games this season against a back three. I might be wrong. I might be right on that. I think I read that somewhere that you might have lost two games. But I don't know if we can win the game playing how we've been playing in that shape. Unless Frank Onieka starts and he's, you know, the second coming of like Beckenbauer and Bobby Charlton rolled together. I think Lampard will play a 4-2-3-1 at home though. So presuming that is the case, it'll be Rushworth in goal who has been sensational. He's genuinely amazing. Really disappointed we didn't manage to sign him permanently in the summer we tried to. He has saved the most goals in terms of XG prevented this season, which tells you a lot what you need to know about Coventry in their defensive kind of shape and inability to keep a clean sheet this season. It'll be Van Avak will play right back. Jada Silver will play left back. The centre-backs is the big issue, which will be music to Barra fans ears, I'm sure. Liam Kitchen and Bobby Thomas were our preferred centre-back duo for most of the season. They've been pretty poor in recent weeks and conceded chances and goals and looked a bit shaky. And Lampard made the decision against Oxford at home, which is interesting, to say the least, given they don't pose much of an attacking threat to drop both of them for Joel Atabodia and Luke Wolfenden. Wolfenden signed from Ipswich in the summer, four million pounds. Hasn't really been given too much of a chance, to be honest. And he probably does deserve a run in the side. But we're going into a game now against the top of the league in a massive game where we don't know who's going to play centre-back. It could be any two of the four. And I'm not sure what you do. Do you put in Thomas and Kitchen and say, right, you've had your rest, that was a lesson, get back to it? Or do you stick with the team, the two that kept a clean sheet against a very weak Oxford team who went down to 10 men in the second half and risked playing two potentially weaker centre-backs together? Or do you mix and match them? I genuinely don't know. And it'll be a big surprise for all of us when we see that team sheet. I would put Thomas and Kitchen back in. I think we need the aggression, we need the power. We need to set pieces in both boxes. They are massive for us. Bobby Thomas is superb in the air. Long throws, corners, free kicks. I would put both of them back in and just say, you've had your warning. Don't do that again. Maybe harsh on Latavodier and Wolfenden, but that's personally what I do. Cov fans will disagree. I put a tweet out there asking who they pick as their best XI, and honestly, I don't think two were the thing, which tells you exactly where we're at right now. Grimes will play in midfield at the base of that kind of two. With either Victor Tort or Onyeka, depending on how fit Onyeka is, I'd probably go Onyeka and see how long he can last in the middle there, and then take him off after an hour or so. And the three in front of them, it depends. Efron Mason-Clark missed a game against Oxford. He's hoping to be back fit for this one. Not sure he'll be fit enough to start. He's played on the left and been pretty fantastic for us this season. I think it'll be Sakamoto on the right and probably Romain Essay on the left, who looked a bit uncomfortable out there against Oxford, to be honest. We're kind of shoehorning him in. He wants to be in the number 10 or on the right instead. And then it's a decision between Josh Eccles, who's a destructive, energetic midfielder who we've been putting in the number 10 position and played there against Oxford. If we want to be a bit more defensive and a bit more, you know, battling in the midfield, or do we put Rodoni in, which I would do, to try and bring a bit of flair and something different in that XFAT to try and go and win the game. I'd go Rodoni behind Hadji Wright. I think he's a slightly better player than Ellis Sims. Sims has got great goals-to-game ratio, but Hadji Wright, I think, up against Luke Ayling, maybe we could have some joy there. He's very quick when he gets going. He's strong. His physicality has been better in recent weeks, actually, even though the goals have dried up slightly. So I'd go for Rodoni behind Wright. But if I see a back three in the lineup with Kitching and Thomas, I'd probably be pretty happy, mate, to be honest with you. I don't know. I do not know. A very weird place to be in. Normally, when we talk about, like, you know, it's hard to pick a team, we talk about suspensions, injuries. It just feels like it hasn't really happened, has it, for Cobb? It's just been an accumulation of inconsistent performances, and it's kind of rolled up into this position that you're in now. I will jump in and just say that Thomas Assante, as I said, he was injured earlier in the season. He's missing his final game and his suspension is Monday. So really frustrating we're going to be without him again because he decided to absolutely elbow a Norwich player in the head and didn't get sent off for it at the time when he should have done. And then the FA charged him with a three-game ban. So that's the situation we're in, where those little frustrating things are happening to us. And it's costing us. It is costing us. He cost us there with a silly decision. So he could have played number 10 and now he won't. I'm very, very happy that he's missing, to be honest, Simon. I'm absolutely buzzing. One final question, and it's our predictions part of the show. Jeff, Lund and I, Owen, Stuart and Malti Spotland all got the right score in our last opposition show. And Simon, I want to come to you. Now, we have done score predictions on your show, but do you want to stick on twist with your prediction, even though we probably did it like 10 minutes ago? Have you changed your mind in the last 10 minutes? Has me talking about how CoV have been in the last two months changed my mind? No, I will stick, mate. I was more positive though, wasn't I? Because I've been saying 3-0 to Borough all week and I said 3-1. So I'm going to say 3-1 to Borough. I know Borough fans are going to be nervous going into this game. But me and you, Johnny, had a conversation before the final day of last season. And you were like, CoV will beat Borough. It'll be an easy win for you. I don't think Carrick has what it takes to get us in the playoffs and motivate this team right now. The form's not been good, et cetera, et cetera. And I feel almost the same way. I think it's the perfect game for CoV. We need either a hammering or something to change. And we're very good historically against Borough. But you will be closing your eyes and ears to everything you've seen and heard about Coventry in the last two months. If you are predicting us to win this game and you'll just be hoping that we can click our fingers and be back in the middle of October where we were scoring three goals a game and we went to Borough and beat you 4-2 and we were sensational. The evidence is we are a mid-table championship team over the last 15 games. We're 16th in the form table over the last 10 games. Like, we're not very good right now. And as much as I wish and hope and pray and everything that somehow we'll turn it around. I watched Borough against Sheffield United and you were incredible. That first half was sensational. If you play anywhere near that level at CBS on Monday you will have so many chances against us. It could be a high-scoring encounter for Borough. You could rack up the score. Ah, yeah. So I think we'll lose the game. And I don't think Borough have too much to be worried about. But also, I am a Cov fan and now maybe I am trying to play us down a bit. So maybe there's that factor. If we turn up and we beat you I'll be the happiest man on the planet. And our season will start from here and we'll be top again. And you can forget about the last two months of football. But the evidence that we've seen over the last two months Borough have to go there and think they can win. By the way, mate, I have seen the bookie's odds for this. And Cov are favourites to win this game which I just can't really understand. Because Borough are favourites to win the league but Cov are favourites to win this game. Maybe just about the home form. I don't know. Home form, we've never won at the CBS. You know, Ipswich, yes, is joining defeat. It doesn't really count if it's Ipswich because they've got like a Prem team. So, yeah, like I said to you on your show I think 2-2, Borough 2-0 we actually, it actually turns back to 2-0 because we can't stay for a full 90 minutes but like you said there if we come in on that first half and play at the same level as we did against Sheppartide or like we did against Hull I think it's one of those games where we could blow you away quite early but Cov are Coventry. We never win, bogey team, really good sides. It's better for us that it's a Monday night under the lights, I think. I think it'll be a better atmosphere. It's a sellout at the CBS. I think if it was like a lunchtime Saturday you might have had it a bit easier. I'm hoping the crowd will be quite aggressive and up for it because this is so pivotal for our season. It's maybe less important for your season because you are a very good team. You've won a lot of games. This is it. We have to turn our form around on Monday night otherwise something has to change. A couple of final vibes in it. That's what it feels like for both teams. Very sliding doors moment, couldn't it? Like you've said there could be a disaster for Coventry and it's the same for us. Like I said to you on your show I think if Borough do win it could be like one of those feelings where you know you could just go and ride off into the sunset and you've won it. But if we get beat it's not the end of the world. I feel there's more probably pressure on Coventry right now to get something than there is Middlesbrough at the minute. But Simon thank you very much for coming on. Really weird that I'm hosting you this time. I'm so used to you hosting me which is really cool. Thanks so much. If you haven't subscribed to Simon's channel his own personal channel and that Corf pod as well please do get subscribed and also subscribe to the spot from the title as well because we're both on there. So do that too. But right now this has been The Opposition Show and this has been Board Breakdown Podcast and that was all I have for you on Wednesday chat.