Following on from two clean sheets and two points away from home, Sunderland host a Coventry City side who are now rather surprisingly without Mark Robins for the first time since 2017.
FORM
Coventry come into this game on the back of a 2-1 home loss to Derby County and that leaves them in 17th place on 15 points, outside the relegation zone on goal difference only. Looking at that, the sacking of Robins may not seem entirely illogical but it ignores the fact their form had been picking up in recent weeks. In the four matches before that they’d won two, against Middlesbrough and Luton Town, earned a point versus QPR and lost narrowly to Preston North End. Their recent form may not translate well into this one though, without the man in the dugout who was behind it.
Our form remains positive and we remain first in the league after the last five matches. Four of those were on the road and we picked up eight points from a possible 12, even if the scoreless draws at QPR and Preston didn’t see us put in the most pleasing performances. A comfortable home win against Oxford United last time out at the Stadium of Light should provide optimism going into this one regardless.
INJURIES/SUSPENSIONS
On paper, our opponents have six players out injured but according to their interim boss (Rhys Carr) two of those may be back for this game. One of the players in question is former Sunderland striker Ellis Simms and there’s also left back Jake Bidwell, ex-Sunderland Academy goalkeeper Ben Wilson, left winger Raphael Borges Rodrigues, central midfielder Jamie Allen and centre forward Norman Bassette. Central midfielder Josh Eccles is suspended.
And for us, Niall Huggins remains injured with an unclear timeframe (his return may not come this season), Jenson Seelt should be back in January, Ian Poveda will be available again sometime this month, Ahmed Abdullahi’s debut could be as early as the middle of this month or as late as early December, for Salis Abdul Samed, his will come in early December and Aji Alese is looking at after this month's international break for a return to action. Anthony Patterson isn’t quite ready for this one but should be back pretty soon after the international break. Jobe Bellingham is serving the second match of his three game suspension.
PREDICTIONS
This game does seem like the perfect recipe for defeat with the Manager of the Month curse looming over us and our record against Coventry City, we haven’t beaten them since 2007 and only 12 times out of 46 attempts in our entire history, but I still think we will win. With them being managerless, they may also be a bit directionless. Mark Robins was always a constant at Coventry, and his dismissal may have an effect on some of their longer serving players. We’ve also been very good at home so far this season, I can’t see that changing any time soon. 2-0 Sunderland.
