With the Premier League dream on the potential horizon for both sides, the likelihood of this happening is starting to become a reality for both teams.
Following Monday’s top of the table clash in the Championship and Coventry taking three points from Middlesbrough, the two sides now sit seven and eight points ahead of Ipswich who have two games in hand.
Despite a blistering start to the season for Frank Lampard’s side, they let a ten point lead at the top of the Sky Bet Championship to Kim Hellberg’s Boro over the festive period following a poor run of form.
The two sides have occupied the automatic spots for the majority of the season and heading into the final 14 games of the season it looks like it will be these two battling it out to complete the ultimate Premier League dream.
Since Boxing Day, the league-leaders have only taken 14 points from a possible 30 available – with 13 points coming at the CBS Arena.
The downfall of form may have been expected by some with the small squad along with the amount of games over Christmas period, it would be hard to maintain.
In contrast, the Teeside-based side have taken 19 from 30 which helped reduce the gap to the top, as well as going top for a week following their victory at Sheffield United.
Middlesbrough’s struggle this season was the lack of striker and a target man which in comparison has been a huge part of Coventry’s success so far.
Tommy Conway has scored four goals in his last five games – but has only managed seven goals all season – Morgan Whittaker is on 11 goals but his form has dipped lately too.
The Sky Blues have two strikers sat on ten goals – Ellis Simms and Brandon Thomas-Asante. Neither of them have played as many minutes as Haji Wright.
Wright is on 13 league goals for the season – his early season form led to West Ham being interested in the American.
Before his hat-trick against Boro, the striker had only managed two goals in 18 following a big dip in form.
At the start of the season, the Sky Blues were rocking up to away games with the belief of a win.
Winning 0-4 at Millwall and 0-5 at Sheffield Wednesday showed signs of pure lethality and conviction away from home – which typically only champions do.
Following the 2-4 victory over Middlesbrough at the Riverside back in November, the Sky Blues have played seven away games since and have drawn three and lost four. This is not the form of potential champions.
Despite being the best home side in the league, if Lampard’s side can not fix their away form then it will be a tough challenge to battle for the title.
The city of Coventry has not seen Premier League football in 25 years following relegation in 2000/01. The fans have seen it all from groundshares to League Two football.
The Sky Blues came close in the 2022/23 season – narrowly losing the playoff final to Luton on penalties and similarly last season losing to Sunderland in the 122nd minute of the second leg in the semi-final.
Middlesborough were last in England’s top division in the 2016/17 season for one season following automatic promotion under Aitor Karanka.
They came close similarly in the 2022/23 season but lost in the playoff semi-final to Coventry 0-1 on aggregate under Michael Carrick but could not complete their dream to be back in the Premier League.
The league-leaders travel to the Hawthorns in a West Midlands Derby at 12.30pm on Saturday as they look to build upon the huge three points against Middlesbrough with an away victory.
Boro will look to put Monday night’s defeat behind them quickly and get back on track at home to relegation-threatened Oxford United at 15:00 on Saturday to rebuild momentum for the big run-in to the end of the season.
