Late goal felt great

WE were very good against Coventry and certainly felt we deserved the win.

We knew they would come out at us and go for the win themselves but we were dominant.

Coventry got a fortunate equaliser but thankfully we pressed on and scored a late winner, which isn’t really like us so it was a great feeling.

We’ve had a few games where teams have scored a late goal and nicked a point against us, so it’s very nice for us to be the ones scoring a late goal.

Junior (Ogedi-Uzokwe) came in for his debut against Coventry and did really well.

He won the penalty, then stepped up to take it himself.

He really took control of the situation and did a great job, then went on to get the assist for Mika’s winner.

It was just about as good a debut as you can get.

I feel like I’m in a very rich vein of form right now.

I’ve just being going about my business quietly and I think I’m in a very good place.

I help the team where I can with distributing the ball from the back and making saves and I’m happy with where my form is at.

As long as I keep keep my head down and work hard, and continue to play well, we have a good chance of keeping clean sheets and more importantly a good chance of winning games — and everything that leads to with a push for the play-off places, of course.

Strength in depth serves us well

Our squad depth is fantastic and it’s the strongest we’ve had at the club for as long as I can remember.

You can see that in the fact our top-scorer (Sammie Szmodics) can’t get a look in at the moment.

If you look at our bench, they’re all good players and everyone’s hungry to play.

That kind of competition can only ever be healthy and it’s a great thing to have.

If you look at any club competing for and winning trophies, that’s the kind of depth they have.

A season is never just about 11 players - it’s about 18, 20 or even 25 lads.

We’ve had a fair few long-term injuries at our club but the lads who are out for longer periods tend to play a vital role.

They stay in and around the dressing room and they help out - and it’s nice to see the progress lads like Luke Prosser and Brennan Dickenson make as they work on their recovery and getting stronger.

It was fantastic to see Dicko come back to the first team and hopefully he can really make an impact as we head into this last part of the season.

He got up and down the left wing very well against Coventry and came on and did exactly as the manager asked.

He has this trademark cross on him, where he gets the ball into the box full of pace and whip and he did exactly that for our winner, as it came from a second phase play after one of his crosses.

Nice to watch some different sports

The Winter Olympics provide a great chance to watch sports that you wouldn’t normally get to see on mainstream TV.

I often struggle to sleep after a game because the adrenalin is pumping, so when I got home after the Coventry game I found myself watching the curling.

It’s not the most exciting thing to watch when you’re still buzzing after the match but I enjoyed it.

I'm not one for superstition

Rituals and superstitions are part and parcel of sport but I don’t have any big ones, not like Newcastle United’s Matt Ritchie and his sausage roll shinpads.

I don’t have special shinpads or gloves or anything.

Kurtis (Guthrie), when he’s playing, likes to be the last one out of the tunnel and onto the pitch before a game. That’s just his thing.

I do touch the the crossbar in three different places before the start of a game and fans behind a goal that I’ve been standing in will have seen that, but I don’t really know what it means or why I do it.

I also get completely changed before a game, as obviously I get all wet and muddy diving around in the warm-up.

So I get a completely new kit on before kick-off, so that I feel fresh and ready for the match, but that’s not a ritual as such.

Spurs will be full of confidence at Wembley

I caught up with Tuesday night’s Champions League games after our win against Coventry and what a result Tottenham Hotspur got for themselves against Juventus.

You maybe wouldn’t expect Manchester City to go and win 4-0 away from home but that just shows the level they’re at just now.

For Spurs to go to Turin and dominate after initially going 2-0 down is amazing and they’ll be full of confidence going back to Wembley.

On the theme of the Champions League, Real Madrid right-back Dani Carvajal was suspended for their game against Paris Saint Germain last night.

He deliberately got a yellow card in his side’s penultimate group match so that he couldn’t miss the knockout round and UEFA picked up on it and suspended him for the game, which I think is the correct decision and protects the integrity of the sport.

You get jokes around Christmas of people getting suspended, or to avoid a long away trip, but I’ve never come across anyone deliberately getting suspended like that in my own experience.

Rugby proved a TV treat

I’m a big rugby fan and when we got on the coach after the game on Saturday, the England-Wales game was still going on, so I insisted that it was put on the TV we’re lucky to have on there.

There was football going on too, so I think some of the other lads would have preferred to watch that rather than the Six Nations, but there was no way I was missing that game against Wales so I put my foot down.

I saw that World Rugby have come out and admitted that the TMO made a mistake in not awarding Wales a try for Gareth Anscombe’s effort against England.

I can see why Wales fans might have felt hard done by during the game, as it really stalled the momentum, and if that try had been given, the result certainly could have been very different.

If it was the other way round and it was an England try getting turned down I’d definitely have felt hard done by.

But it is what it is and there are still games left to be played.

Festival-goers will have a blast

I’ve seen that the line-up has been announced for this year’s Reading and Leeds festival.

It’s something I did when I was younger but I think it’s for a younger crowd so I’d stay away from it now.

It’s near the start of the football season anyway so I couldn’t go even if I wanted to.

Kings of Leon will be great.

I’ve seen them a couple of times and the people seeing them at the festival this year are in for a real treat.

Another great band I’ve seen, who aren’t at Reading and Leeds, are Coldplay.

I’d love to see them again, they were excellent at Wembley a couple of years ago.

SAM WALKER WAS TALKING TO JAMES BROWNING