Interview: Coventry City’s Jay Tabb

From a season that has delivered very little for Coventry City, one bright spark has certainly emerged. Midfield maestro Jay Tabb is one of just a few Sky Blues players who can feel that they have given their all this campaign. Tiresome displays week in, week out have won the fans over and the diminutive 24 year-old is an early front runner for the fans player of the season.

I caught up with Tabb as he reflects on his career as well as what the Championship has to offer.

Q. Jay, How do you think this season has gone for Coventry?
A. The season has been a bit of a disappointment on the whole, we’ve had some really good games but we’ve been too inconsistent.

Q. Did you think that Iain Dowie had achieved all he could with the Sky Blues?
A. No, I think that had he been given more time then he would have turned it around and got the best out of us again. He was a really good manager, but these decisions have to be made.

Q. Are you pleased with the appointment of new boss Chris Coleman?
A. Yes I am. He’s a big name manager who is definitely going to move the club forward, he’s still a young manager but has already done a lot in his career.

Q. How do you rate the Championship compared with League One, where you played at Brentford?
A. The standard is higher and the expectation to do well is more too. League one was good but the Championship is definitely a step up.

Q. Where is your favourite away Championship ground?
A. I’d say West Broms ground, The Hawthorns. That’s a lovely stadium.

Q. How do you rate Coventry’s home ground, the Ricoh Arena?
A. The Ricoh is a great ground to play in when it’s full and we’re playing well, but when things aren’t going so well and it’s half empty it can be a bit of a lonely place!

Q. Who do you rate as the best Championship player?
A. That’s a tough one as there are a lot of top players in the Championship. I’d say Filipe Teixeira from West Brom, he has been class when we have played them.

Q. Who is the best player you have ever played against?
A. That would probably be Anderson when we played Man United this season.

Q. Having played against, and beaten, both Manchester United and Blackburn this season, do you think that you could cope with the step up to the Premiership?
A. I’d like to think that one day I could play in the Premiership, but at the moment I still have a lot to learn and there are more areas of my game that I can develop in the Championship.

Q. And finally, which three Championship sides do you think will go up this season?
A. I think the three sides that will go up are Bristol City, West Brom and Crystal Palace.

Many thanks and best wishes to Jay for sparing a few minutes to answer the questions.

FA Cup joy for the underdogs

 

The FA Cup has reached the semi final stage and there are some notable absentees. Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have all been slayed, leaving the cup very much up for grabs.

So who does occupy the four coveted semi final spots? Well that would be Championship strugglers Barnsley, Championship high flyers West Bromich Albion, Championship play off hopefuls Cardiff City and Premiership mid table experts Portsmouth. Now i’m not sure if you noticed, but I actually said the word ‘Championship’ three times there, and the word ‘Premiership’ just the once. Weird, hey?

So has the gap between the top flight and the second tier closed? possibly even overlapped? Hard to say. Cup matches are invariably tough to call, as Barnsley have superbly proved. Reputations count for nothing as both Liverpool and Chelsea have found out.

Apart from anything else, it’s just refreshing to see Championship teams doing so well in the Cup. In the history of the competition, only eight teams who were playing outside of the top level of English football have lifted the trophy. The most recent of which being West Ham, who beat Arsenal in 1980.

Portsmouth are favourites to win, as you would expect, but that is not to say you should write the other three teams off. Both Cardiff and Barnsley have shown a great knack of getting the better of their Premiership cousins this season, while West Brom have amassed an impressive ten goals in their last two cup games. Baggies fans will also be keen to learn that the only team to have ever won the FA Cup and promotion to the top flight in the same season was, yep, West Brom way back in 1931. Perhaps it is fate?

I would like to think that the Championship has gained a lot of respect out of this seasons cup, and rightly so. For too long now this league has been seen as a place for Premiership has beens to pick up one last pay packet. That opinion is wrong and nothing would please me more than to see a Championship team lift the cup in May.