Coventry City star pays tribute to caretaker manager

Apr 17 2011 by Lee Gibson, Sunday Mercury

RICHARD Keogh, the one constant factor in Coventry City’s chaotic season, has added his tribute to caretaker manager Andy Thorn for all but banishing the threat of relegation.

Signed from Carlisle last summer, Keogh is the only player to have started every Championship match this season and has been a key component in Thorn’s diamond formation.

The system relies on the full-backs adding attacking width to their defensive duties and was demonstrated to perfection by Keogh and Chris Hussey as City trounced Portsmouth 3-0 on Tuesday to open up a 12-point gap on the bottom three with five matches to play.

Keogh, who laid on Gary McSheffrey’s second goal, adding to his assist for Marlon King’s strike at Derby last weekend, said: “It was nice to play a part in the goals.

“I’ve always liked to get forward but sometimes this season the final ball hasn’t quite been there when I’ve got myself into those positions so that’s something I’ve been working on really hard in training.

“I think the formation that Andy has brought in fits the personnel of the squad. When you play a narrow diamond like that it’s up to the full-backs to provide the width and I think it suits the likes of me, Chris Hussey and Jordan Clarke.”

Like all of his team-mates, Keogh hasn’t got a bad word to say for former boss Aidy Boothroyd – “He had a lot of belief in me and I’m very grateful to him for giving me the chance to play at this level” – but concedes that the squad’s self-confidence has soared since Thorn and Steve Harrison took the reins.

“He’s very approachable, very open. He makes it exactly clear what he wants and he builds people up which is great for your confidence.

“He has been great on the training ground as well and the results show that we’re enjoying our football. Our performances have been very positive, we’ve been scoring goals and we’ve kept a couple of clean sheets, so the games can’t come quickly enough at the moment – we want to kick on, finish as high as we can in the league and prove we’re a good side.”

Despite his forward forays Keogh has yet to notch his first goal for the Sky Blues, although he came desperately close when he hit the bar against Leicester and Preston.

“I’d love to score one myself,” he said, “and it’s been a bit frustrating because I’ve been doing everything but hit the back of the net.

“Hopefully there’s still time for me to put that right this season, although I haven’t got any celebration planned. When you’re a striker like Marlon or Freddy Eastwood you can plan one, but if it does happen for me but I think I’ll probably just run around like a headless chicken like I normally do”