Recently by Neil Ford

LEON Best joins Newcastle for yet another undisclosed fee, from a business point of view, I agree with Monsieur Ranson that it is a good bit of business, since one assumes that he will have attained and negotiated in earnest for a fee that is greater than that we would have received had the tribunal route been followed in the summer.

Best had made it clear he would not be staying around much longer, given his apathy over signing a new contract, so to leave is perhaps the right choice all round. I never condone the small fraction of City fans that choose to boo our players, but I do feel that Leon Best's body language was one, prior to the booing, of a man who wanted away, so for that reason, amongst many others, this is the right move.

THE old cliché that all we want for Christmas is some points has never been so true.

Let us not get carried away with ourselves, 2 wins back to back against the two weakest teams, using their league positions as a fair reflection of their forms, in the Championship, does not a 'good season' make, but, I am starting to feel that the points drought of the past few months, should be seeing a revival soon.

Those 2 fixtures in the past are the sort that traditionally we always slip up on, so encouraging has to be the word surely!

Given the opposition over Christmas, 2 points wouldn't be a complete failing, 4 would be a great return and despite them both being in the top half of the table, Nottingham Forest in particular hitting a rich vein of form of late, 4 is achievable.

Why ... quite simply, with the exception of Clingan, we are starting to get choices and options back on the field for most positions.

Equally, we can't leave out the fact that Freddie Eastwood has had 4 back to back "Man of the match" awards from the Evening Telegraph and having watched 3 of those games, I would whole heartily agree with that award.

FOR some time now, despite many pessimistic friends / fans and certain forum entry posters, I have refrained from learning towards that big red PANIC button on my metaphorical desk, but after last nights woeful performance coupled with a manager appearing to be in denial as to how really bad things are, one has to ask the question can one man make a difference?

The one man, Sammy Clingan, because lets face it I personally do see that there is a correlation between his injury and our current demise in form, but if you look at last nights team, with the exception of perhaps playing Cranie instead of Jordan Clarke and Westwood in goal, we are back to our theoretical best 1st eleven.

BACK in August, in the light of a number of variants, two main ones being the lack of transfer activity and the loss of key players, we appeared to have quite a subdued set of fans, myself included.

To see that we had in some way strengthened the club, in anyway other than financially was hard to take on board.

I have to admit though, with a quarter of the season over, perhaps there were other 'benefits seeds' being sown, that didn't have a pound sign in front of it.

The team, with of course the usual Sky blue dose of inconsistency thrown in for good measure, has looked a more rounded affair over these first 11 games, with a slight ironic tone that for once, our problems that have in previous seasons always been of the 'goals for' nature, now appears to be more along the lines of 'goals against'.

CHRIS COLEMAN appears, in a couple of his recent interviews, to be implying that some of the fan base are fickle.

Some, I am sure, probably are so I am not about to defend all, but I also do feel that there is another core part of the fan base that isn't fickle, just frustrated.

I, with my fellow circa 14,000 other fans last night watched a competitive game of football, some parts showed quality, some frailty and some, albeit towards the end, a little lack of confidence. What last night didn't show, which other games of late have, is lack of effort.

WELL, after quite a strange transfer day, since not even the Premier League giants secured many interesting moves and the transfer window therefore closed with a small whisper rather than a bang, perhaps now is time to take stock?

The GOOD ... Keiren Westwood remaining a Coventry player, (at least until the January window opens), has to be considered a massive positive for the club.

WELL it is no surprise that we are getting close to the end of another August - traditionally a worrying time - because history tells us that we are more likely to lose rather than win during this time and so midnight August 31 can never come fast enough

This year, Sky Blues supporters' nails are being anxiously nibbled for fear of losing, arguably, the best young talent at our club for sometime.

Generally, forum opinions appear to have ultimately condoned the sale of Dann, were wearier of the sale of Fox, but generally with the addition of the new Chelsea starlet have moved on and accepted the clubs approach that these two sales were for the better good of the club, but I think opinion will swing badly should Westwood be sacrificed too.

Most fans would concede if silly money is offered - and by that I mean £10 million plus - that the club would accept the offer. Having shown little resolve to the previous two offers for the above players, perhaps this is the time, for the club to say Keiren is not for sale and mean it!

Let's be honest, having witnessed Konstantopoulos in action this year in a pre-season friendly, Dimi surely just isn't good enough between the sticks. He is fine as backup but we can't seriously tackle this transitional season, having already absorbed some serious changes in our skeleton squad, without a proven shot-stopper and lets not forget they don't come any better in the Championship than OUR very own Keiren Westwood, because he is, quite "simply the BEST"!