Coventry City manager Iain Dowie can look forward to his latest away outing with a little more cause for enthusiasm as he takes his toppled Sky Blues side to take on Ipswich Town Portman Road today.
The Sky Blues may have slipped to fourth in the Championship table after picking up just one point from their last two games. But Leon Best's late equaliser at Crystal Palace in midweek not only ruined Simon Jordan's evening, and improved Dowie's immensely, it stopped the Coventry rot.
Coming on top of the previous Saturday's home defeat to Bristol City, another loss would have been a huge blow, especially on a night when Dowie was on the receiving end of sustained abuse from the home fans.
The former Palace boss can now at least start looking forward again, even if for most Coventry fans a visit to one of their least happy hunting grounds must fill them with dread.
It is more than a decade since Coventry last won at Portman Road thanks to goals from Sean Flynn and Peter Ndlovu in a 2-0 victory. That is their only league win in 24 visits to Tractor country since August 1970. But at least they do have something of a lucky charm in Dowie.
As Dowie prepares to lock managerial horns for the first time with his long-time Northern Ireland team-mate Jim Magilton, he is comforted that he has a 100 per cent winning record in the dug-out at Portman Road.
He earned his first victory as Palace boss there, in December 2003, just six days after taking charge. And the Eagles again made a successful landing in Suffolk two years later.
If he is to make it three wins out of three today, though, Dowie knows his team are going to have defend a lot better than they have done in the last two matches.
"We are shooting ourselves in the foot," said Dowie. "There were lots of good bits from Tuesday night's game, but there were lots of sloppy bits of defending in there.
"We are not blessed with a great amount of cover, particularly in defensive areas, with Robert Page and Colin Hawkins out.
"I've always said I'd like some help and I could go out and get a couple of loans. But Isaac Osbourne might be back around the place this weekend so that might give me an option."
