Coventry City manager Andy Thorn has urged his players to keep their nerve as they enter the run in to the end of the season.
The Sky Blues need to maintain their confidence and pick up as many points as possible and the next three games are as important as any they have played so far this season.
Coventry are unbeaten now in four games, but still have to win away from The Ricoh. Two away draws though have helped to close the gap to safety to just three points and any win now is vital.
City host bottom of the table Portsmouth on Saturday, both teams are desperate for points, but City are buoyant after picking up a point at Cardiff on Wednesday and will go into the game in confident mood.
The Sky Blues had a poor first half at Cardiff and went in 1-0 down at the break, but Thorn was relieved it was only a one goal deficit. They equalised only to go behind again arguably against the run of play, but an equaliser late on in added time earned Coventry a well deserved point. Coventry could easily have won the game had Gary McSheffrey not missed a penalty.
Coventry boss Andy Thorn told the CT's Andy Turner: “It almost feels like a win when you do things like that. It’s nice but it’s important that we don’t get carried away and that we come back down to earth and focus on an important game against Portsmouth.”
Thorn was asked if the Pompey game is a "must win match" to which he replied, “I am not going to go down that route because whenever I have put pressure on them to perform for an individual game they have tended not to perform, but as I said to the boys at half time at Cardiff, I just want to go out there and play football and that’s when they’re at their best, and when they’re at their best that’s when we get the rewards.
“I think it was as good a half as we have produced this season because, to be fair, we took a battering in the first half and couldn’t get a foot hold in the game. We got back to playing how we know and that gave us the confidence and we thrived off it in the end.”
He continued, “This next match is an important one but you don’t get any more points than three if you win it, but we have given ourselves a chance to get out of it because we have pulled teams in around us and it’s important that we picked up something from our last two away games.
“There are still eight to go so I am not going to overplay the importance of it. It’s about us now and we have to maintain our form and start turning these draws into wins now.”
Coventry were the poorer of the two sides during the first half at Cardiff, but a half time change of tactics worked wonders and it was the Sky Blues who dominated the second half.
Thorn explained the second half transformation, saying, “We’ll play whatever is best for us at the time. Other teams change as well and you have to see that and be ready to adapt, and we did that at Cardiff. We went away from the diamond because of personnel, not because I didn’t want to play that way, and it gave us a fresh impetus.
"We needed a fresh impetus again at Cardiff so we changed again and we need to keep freshening things up because it keeps everyone going and alive, but if you give me £5million I’ll play that way all day long and if the boys play like they did in the second half the other night they’ll give themselves a massive chance.
"You have to play to your strengths and I felt we didn’t do that in the first half."