Coventry City 2-0 West Bromwich Albion: Sky Blues take significant step towards the play-offs

Coventry took a huge step in the race for the Sky Bet Championship play-off places after beating 10-player West Brom 2-0 in front of a record-breaking crowd at the CBS Arena.

Jack Rudoni and Matt Grimes scored either side of half-time to put Frank Lampard's men three points clear of seventh-placed Middlesbrough, who beat lowly Plymouth 2-1.

West Brom, who saw Callum Styles sent off moments after Grimes had netted the second, dropped to eighth in the table and sit six points behind the sixth-placed Sky Blues with three games to play.

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Coventry had to wait 96 minutes for their winner over Portsmouth in their last home outing but were up and running after just six minutes when Rudoni slammed Haji Wright's deflected cross past an unsighted Josh Griffiths.

The Sky Blues caused problems down the left throughout the first half, and Wright forced Griffiths into a save shortly after when he cut inside and fired at goal.

Liam Kitching could have doubled the lead when his close-range header was kept out by Griffiths.

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After the break, Griffiths scrambled across his goal to claw away Jay Dasilva's goal-bound cross.

Tony Mowbray, who managed Coventry for 18 months between 2015 and 2016, had made two changes at the break and it was one of his introductions who handed Coventry the second.

John Swift was caught dawdling inside his own box and Grimes took full advantage by nipping in and calmly slotting into the corner to the delight of over 31,000 in attendance at the CBS Arena.

It was the midfielder's second goal in a week after the former Swansea man netted the opener in Coventry's 1-1 draw at Hull on Monday night.

Things went from bad to worse for the Baggies seconds later when Styles was shown a second yellow card for hauling down Tatsuhiro Sakamoto.

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Sakamoto could have increased Coventry's lead even further when his shot was blocked following Wright's square ball after a mazy run into the Baggies box.

Mowbray's men, who are without a win on the road since victory at Hull in mid-November, offered little in reply albeit Will Lankshear went close when he got on the end of Mikey Johnston's inswinging cross.

Swift could have atoned for his error but blasted his effort way over Brad Collins' crossbar in the Coventry goal, while former Sky Blues loanee Adam Armstrong saw his effort disallowed by the offside flag.

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The managers

Coventry's Frank Lampard:

"We were aggressive and we played some really good stuff, very complete in the first half. In the second half we get our early goal, red card, they're a good footballing team so they can handle 10 players to a degree, stay on the ball a bit, but we saw the game out.

"It's a big game today and there's more to come, it was a very, very good performance.

"It's nice to get an early goal, when you're playing at home and you start with the right energy, in the dressing room they felt that on the way out, they felt ready and focused and they were, and they got their goal.

"I'm delighted for Rudi (Jack Rudoni), we work loads on the training pitch on those sort of finishes and he gave me a little wink when he came over after because we've been working on it. He's a top-class young player as we all saw so it set the tone for the game and gave us that element of comfort.

"It's important against 10 men that you try and push them right back with a man advantage. Sometimes you don't get your goal, I'd have loved to have had three, but at the same time I was happy with the way we saw it out.

"We've not achieved anything yet, we're hoping to make the play-offs but today was a good performance."

West Brom's Tony Mowbray:

"Disappointing, frustrating, didn't perform at our level. Away, we just haven't accrued the points that we need to.

"It's frustrating that we aren't getting to the level we need to be at in such big games.

"The team performed below the level that they've been showing they can play at, with it being such a big occasion I think they're a bit unsure why that happened.

"Coventry are a decent team and they're on a good run of form and yet I still felt that we would come here and dominate more.

"They played pretty well first half, tried to make the changes at half-time that would have given us more control of the football match and yet we lost a goal within three minutes and had a sending off pretty quickly after and obviously the dynamic of the game changed.

"We're all disappointed and frustrated but it's football, you have to take it on the chin. We have lost late goals in games where we felt we should have been winning and yet we've found a way to lose them or drop points but that wasn't the case today.

"I think we've lost a little bit of the intensity that we normally play at."

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