ELLIS Simms scored a brace in his first outing in a Coventry City shirt as the Sky Blues made the perfect start to pre-season with a 4-0 thrashing of Forest Green Rovers.
Simms struck either side of a Kasey Palmer goal to put City in command at the break before youngster Justin Obiwku completed the scoring early in the second half at The New Lawn.
Coventry took the lead on five minutes when Simms coolly slotted the ball past the Forest Green goalkeeper from inside the penalty area.
And the Sky Blues doubled their advantage almost immediately from the restart as Palmer pounced on a mistake to fire home from the edge of the penalty area.
Simms grabbed his second of the game on the half-hour mark, finding the bottom corner from Matty Godden’s through ball.
Mark Robins made three changes at the break, which included the introduction of Obiwku who needed just 16 seconds to score City’s fourth goal after Godden’s initial effort was saved into his path.
The Sky Blues were dominant throughout against the League Two side as City were able to give useful minutes to a number of players including new signings Jay Dasilva and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and also a host of youth players.
Forest Green’s interim head coach, Hannah Dingley, was in charge for the fixture and is the first woman to take charge of a men’s senior English professional football team.
City will play Shrewsbury Town, Milton Keynes Dons and Exeter City in their remaining pre-season friendlies.
Coventry are next in action away at Shrewsbury on Saturday, July 22 with kick-off at 3pm at The Croud Meadow
