Striker Julian Joachim will make his long awaited debut for the Sky Blues against Grimsby at Highfield Road tomorrow.

The former Aston Villa man has recovered from an ankle injury he picked up in pre-season and expected to start up front alongside 19-year-old Jay Bothroyd as Lee Hughes is suspended.

New Coventry captain John Eustace is also fit and could go straight into the starting line-up along with centre back Gary Breen who came through Monday’s reserve match at Wimbledon unscathed.

City boss Gordon Strachan confirmed:

“Gary is definitely fit enough to play, but all three will figure somewhere along the line.

“They are players who you would probably expect to see in the starting line up at the beginning of the season. We’ve had one or two missing and it has been nice to see more faces on the training pitch.”

Joachim and Eustace will add a new dimension to Coventry’s attacking options, but Strachan says the delivery into them must be right if the Sky Blues are to start scoring more goals.

He said:

“We have been working on taking an extra couple of passes if necessary if the time isn’t right to cross the ball.

“We don’t want to be rushed into our crossing, but do it when we are in the right positions because about 80 per cent of goals come from crosses.

“We want to get our midfield players on the ball more often and we have been hammering that into them all week.”

Grimsby come to Highfield Road riding high in second place in the First Division table, but Strachan says that does not hold much weight at this stage of the season.

He said:

“They are working hard for each other now and enjoying their success and it should be a good match.

“But there is only four games gone and you can jump about seven places with a victory at the moment.

“We see this as chance to get ourselves into gear by winning the game and then look to go on a run.

“We have the players here where we could go unbeaten for a long time, but you never know when that run is going to start – it could start tomorrow, it could start next week, nobody knows.”