Coventry City are not dead and buried

That all too familiar sinking feeling reared its ugly head for what felt like the umpteenth time this season as Michael Chopra's late winner hammered what threatens to be the final nail into Coventry City's relegation coffin.

Bleak imagery aside, there's a serious case for match day tickets to be sold with a health warning, after even I -a man young enough not have experienced the '87 FA Cup win- felt at risk of suffering from a minor heart attack following the 94th minute debacle.

As is often the case, the Sky Blues managed to put a downer on what had promised to be a highly enjoyable day.

A hearty lunch followed a brief encounter with Coventry City CEO Tim Fisher at the train station (in which I was far too star struck to even consider saying hello), and the pre-match jollity was topped off nicely by the arrival of the year's first proper snowfall.

Despite a few promising spells, for me the Sky Blues appeared for the first time to look like a team at the bottom of the table.

In spite of the calamitous nature of Ipswich's opener, in which a catalogue of botched clearances culminated in an extremely unfortunate deflected goal, you'd be hard pushed to say that it was undeserved.

As has been the case all too many times this season, City had to go a goal down before they really came out of the blocks. Although this could be misconstrued as a positive feature of the team in the sense that their heads didn't drop after going behind, the way in which we are incapable of playing positively when ahead (or at times when drawing) is disastrously unsustainable.

The commencement of the second half was greeted with a formation change, which many fans highlighted as a tactical tragedy that ultimately led the team to invite pressure until Ipswich inevitably grabbed a highly debatable equalizer.

I shan't discuss the events that unfolded deep into injury time for fear of bursting into tears, but needless to say, it wasn't pretty.

Listening to the fans' phone-in after the game, it was evident that the veil of SISU-hatred that has until now protected Andy Thorn from criticism is slowly being lifted.

As impatience and fear of relegation grow ever larger with every defeat, it's easy to forget that there are still an abundance of points to play for. One thing's for sure; Coventry City won't go down without a fight.