Dale are back in league action this weekend with an away trip down to Birmingham to take on Coventry City.

Date: Saturday 16th November
Kick-off: 3pm
Venue: St Andrews (Birmingham City)
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THE DALE
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A break away from league action saw Rochdale scrape into the hat for the second round of the FA Cup with a 0-0 draw away at Wrexham on Sunday afternoon. A home tie against Boston awaits the winner of that match. We also took on Bradford City in the Football League Trophy on Tuesday night and came away with a 2-1 at Valley Parade thanks to goals from Fabio Tavares and Rekeil Pyke. The win wasn’t enough to see Dale progress from the group stage and our participation in the Leasing.com Trophy came to an end.

We welcomed back Spanish Bob to the starting line-up against Wrexham while Ryan McLaughlin managed to come off the bench in the game also. Paul McShane missed out having gone off with a knock against Ipswich so we would hope he’s back for this game. McNulty and Magloire are still a bit off being able to return but are on similar paths for coming back according to BBM.

Dale will unfortunately be without Luke Matheson and Rhys Norrington-Davies who are on international duty with England Under 18’s and Wales Under 21’s respectively. Aaron Wilbraham should be available given his suspension is now over following his red card away at Oxford.

Our form recently has been poor, our performance at Wrexham was as bad as we’ve seen all season and we desperately need to stop this winless run and get back winning ways. I’d take a draw even on Saturday given that Coventry’s “home” form has been excellent this season.

We’re in the middle of a tough run of fixtures at the minute having just played league leaders Ipswich and up coming games against Portsmouth at home, a trip to promotion hopefuls Rotherham and Burton Albion before playing the impressive Fleetwood Town as well before the years out so points are vital but are going to be tough to come by.

We all know how reliant on Ian Henderson we are, he’s been well backed up by Callum Camps chipping in with goals. We could do with the likes of Done and Pyke also chipping in more than they’ve done so far. I expected to see more from the on-loan Huddersfield forward but he’s had an injury hit season so far and been in and out of the side. A run of games should do him good.

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THE OPPOSITION:
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This is an away fixture but not in the full sense of the phrase. Coventry have been forced out of their own ground at the Ricoh Arena and had to groundshare with Birmingham City at St Andrews, 16 miles away from their home. The is the equivalent to us having to play games at Stockport County so it can’t be too pleasant for the Coventry fans.

Despite this, their “home” form has been superb. They’ve played 12 games at St Andrews in all competitions and won 8 of them and only lost once. Their away form has been poor though and they’ve yet to win on their travels in the league and their only away win came last week in the FA Cup away at League Two Colchester United to set up a second-round match at home to either Ipswich Town or Lincoln City. That said, despite not winning yet away from home in the league, they’ve only lost once and drawn the other six games.

Coventry haven’t had one standout goalscorer this season and instead have three people listed on just 3 league goals so far in Amadou Bakayoko, Matt Godden and Zain Westbrooke.

Matt Godden is a new signing at Coventry this season having been a big goal scorer at Peterborough, Stevenage and Ebbsfleet previously. Coventry paid an undisclosed fee to Peterborough back in August and he’s scored 4 goals in 14 games in all competitions.

Former Dale midfielder Jamie Allen signed for Coventry at the end of July from Burton Albion for an undisclosed fee but has been unable to make a single appearance yet due to a muscle tear. Just as he was planning to come back, he suffered a recurrence of the injury in an under 23’s match as faces another extended spell on the side-lines.

Mark Robins is the man in charge of Coventry City for a second spell having first managed them from September 2012 till February 2013. This spell in charge of the Sky Blues started back in March 2017 after spells at Scunthorpe, Huddersfield, Barnsley and Rotherham.

Coventry have been excellent so far this season and currently find themselves occupying the last playoff place in League One on 26 points having lost just twice all season.

The fixtures don’t get any easier for us do they?!

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FORM BOOK - LAST 5 GAMES:
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Rochdale:

Wrexham (a) - DRAW
Ipswich Town (h) — LOSS
Bristol Rovers (h) — LOSS
Oxford United (a) - LOSS
Milton Keynes (h)- WIN

Coventry City:

Colchester United (a) — WIN
Accrington Stanley (h) — DRAW
Peterborough United (a) — DRAW
Fleetwood Town (h) — WIN
Milton Keynes (a) - DRAW

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HEAD TO HEAD:
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COVENTRY — 3
DRAWS — 4
ROCHDALE - 8

09 Feb 2019 — Rochdale 0-1 Coventry - League One
01 Sep 2018 - Coventry 0-1 Rochdale — League One
17 Apr 2017 - Rochdale 2-0 Coventry - League One
22 Oct 2016 — Coventry 2-0 Rochdale - League One
05 Mar 2016 - Coventry 0-1 Rochdale - League One

Photo: Action Images

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