He scored five goals in 27 games during the 2000–01 season. He played just two games the following season before a one-month loan to Coventry City in December 2001 soon turned into a £250,000 move at the end of the year. He aimed to fire the "Sky Blues" to the play-offs, though the season ended with Coventry occupying 11th spot. By some measure of irony he played at Fratton Park in a Portsmouth shirt, Graham Barber having deemed both Coventry strips were too similar to Pompey's home strip forced the side to borrow Portsmouth's orange away strip.