PREVIEW | Coventry City vs Sunderland - team news, lineups, predictions | OneFootball

Coventry City and Sunderland face off this Friday at the The Coventry Building Society Arena in the two sides' first leg semi-final clash in the EFL Championship.

Frank Lampard's Sky Blues ended the regular season in fifth, Coventry securing their play-off spot with a 2-0 win over Middlesbrough on the final matchweek of the season in the second tier.

Sunderland, meanwhile, were assured of their play-off status for weeks and their form has tailed off alarmingly - the Mackems losing their last five games in a row!

The two meetings between the sides this season saw a 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light last November followed by a 3-0 win for Coventry in March.

The Fan Zone

Ross Cooper (SkyBlues Extra ): Here we go!

The play-offs are upon us and I am extremely excited and like many others fans I just want to get the games started.

Securing fifth spot on the final day was brilliant and we now have a home leg against Sunderland coming up. Another sold out CBS Arena and a sea of sky blue will abound, and we are going to need everyone; both fans and players, to be on it to give ourselves the best opportunity to try and get a positive result from this first leg.

A lot has been said about Sunderland's form coming into the play-offs, but I think it is naive to believe the game should be a win because of that.

The regular season is over, Sunderland have known for a while that fourth place was theirs. I expect them to come to Coventry with renewed and improved energy, vigour and purpose as they know the task ahead.

So we need to be on it, at it and across it in every department. We need Ben Wilson (our very own Mackem) to perform like he did against Boro on final day and the back four need to be able to keep Sunderland's talented, attacking threat at bay. If we can do that then our in-form star man Jack Rudoni, alongside Sakamoto and Haji Wright, is more than capable of causing Sunderland major issues. The latter of those three proved that with a hat-trick when the two sides met several weeks ago.

I expect a tighter game, I don't think the previous results have any weighting on this game at all. But I think we need to try and use home advantage, start fast and take the game to them.

I think Jay Dasilva may be the only change Frank Lampard makes for this game. Dasilva is back from suspension and I think Lampard will look to utilise his attacking ability in this first leg to try and gain an advantage to take to Sunderland.

Play Up SkyBlues!

Prediction: 2-1

Graham Falk (WTF Sunderland Podcast): If you'd asked me back in October which side Sunderland were likely to have been paired with in the event of a playoff semi-final, I'd have bet my house on Coventry City. Football is all about history, isn't it - and us and these lots have a lot of it.

I won't bore you with the details, but for two teams approximately 173 miles apart, there's no love lost. What there is to be lost though is a place at Wembley, and neither team wants that.

Having won every single home game against us since 1985, they also battered us 3-0 earlier in the campaign, so you'd expect them to be favourites for the first leg.

Alas, history doesn't really matter, it's mainly been our own form, as we head into two of our biggest games in over a decade on the back of five defeats in a row.

As we fell to another drab home defeat last weekend against QPR, the sense of dread flowed through the crowd like the Black Plague of 1346 as it became apparent it would be our bogey team that we faced in the semi-final.

But records are there for a reason - to be broken, and there's no reason Sunderland can't. However, it's perhaps best to remember that nothing is won this Friday.

Prediction: 2-2

Predicted lineups

Coventry City: Ben Wilson, Milan van Ewijk, Liam Kitching, Bobby Thomas, Jay Dasilva, Jack Rudoni, Matt Grimes, Ben Sheaf, Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Ellis Simms, Haji Wright

Sunderland: Anthony Patterson, Trai Hume, Luke O´Nien, Chris Mepham, Dennis Cirkin, Jobe Bellingham, Daniel Neil, Patrick Roberts, Enzo Le Fée, Eliezer Mayenda, Wilson Isidor

Unavailable

Coventry City

Sunderland

Last starting XIs

Coventry City ( vs Middlesbrough 2025-05-03): Ben Wilson, Milan van Ewijk, Bobby Thomas, Liam Kitching, Jake Bidwell, Matt Grimes, Ben Sheaf, Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Jack Rudoni, Haji Wright, Ellis Simms

Sunderland ( vs QPR 2025-05-03): Anthony Patterson, Trai Hume, Luke O´Nien, Chris Mepham, Dennis Cirkin, Daniel Neil, Jobe Bellingham, Patrick Roberts, Chris Rigg, Enzo Le Fée, Eliezer Mayenda

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