Football League World
·5 November 2024
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·5 November 2024
The Sky Blues may have stumbled on a winning formula.
This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...
Coventry City have finally started to find some form after another slow start to a Championship season, and manager Mark Robins has seemingly stumbled upon a new position for star summer signing Jack Rudoni.
Beating Middlesbrough on Saturday meant that the Sky Blues had recorded successive league victories for the first time in over six months. They'd had a stuttering start to the season, but, in what could have been considered a desperate act, Robins appears to have found a successful formula, which begun against Luton Town.
Robins decided to bring natural central midfielder Jack Rudoni on for Liam Kitching at half-time, and he put the £5 million summer signing at left wing-back.
Since then, Coventry have looked like a different team. He assisted the goal that started their comeback against the Hatters, and they ended up taking the lead in the game in added time.
It worked again against Boro. They were aided by an early first half sending off for Hayden Hackney, but Coventry still breezed to a 3-0 away win, with Rudoni putting in a composed performance in his new position.
Because of the change in play since his impromptu move to the wide defensive areas, Football League World's Coventry fan pundit, Ryan Murhpy, believes that the 24-year-old should continue to play where he has been for the last game-and-a-half, with City are preparing to face Derby County on Wednesday evening.
"I think Jack Rudoni should definitely start there," said Murphy when asked about the ex-Huddersfield Town man's new-found wing-back role.
"It made us a lot more attacking from the left, where normally if we're playing with wing-backs we've only got an attacking side on the right where you've got Milan van Ewijk, whereas this one change made us attacking from both sides, which gives the opposition a lot more to deal with and think about.
"It's causing a lot more problems. I said against Middlesbrough that we needed to start with the same team, which Robins did.
"The only forced change was Ellis Simms as he's took a knock in training, and then Torp, who scored the goal against Luton, got given the chance ahead of (Tatsuhiro) Sakamoto
.
"With Jack Rudoni starting at left wing-back we've had two positive results. It's the first time this season that we have had back-to-back wins, so, yeah, I think that he's making that position his own.
"And I believe that, especially when things start going right, Robins does stick to that and he won't change things.
"I'm fully confident that it's going to be his position now for the foreseeable future and rightly so. Jay Dasilva could feel a little bit hard done by because, when (Jake) Bidwell got injured, he did come in and actually played decent, to be fair.
"He's not done much wrong but, with the formation change and Robins tinkering a bit, it just seems to have worked since Rudoni has been at left wing-back. Two games and six points.
"We've got Derby at home, another game on paper which is winnable, and then we play Sunderland, who are the league leaders, away from home.
"But, over the last few years, even in League One and the Championship, we seem to have gotten the better of them, so it's good that we're going there in good form, hopefully with another win against Derby in midweek. If we can get that win then we'll go there in great form.
"So I'd keep it how it is. Give this formation and set of players a block of games and see what the returns are and go from there."
Because of how annoyingly inconsistent the Sky Blues had been up until this tactical switch was made, there is absolutely no reason to go back to the old way of doing things and bring either Dasilva back in or Bidwell when he's fit again.
It may have been by luck and not design, but City have been playing well since Rudoni's insertion into the starting XI in that position.
As the FLWCoventry fan pundit said, why would you try and fix something that isn't broken?
This doesn't even appear close to broken; it looks more well-oiled, if anything, and Rudoni is proving why he was bought for such a big fee - just not in the expected position on the pitch.