FOUR straight league wins for Coventry City have put them just one point outside the play-off positions going into two tough home fixtures against fellow promotion chasers Doncaster and Accrington.
Tuesday night saw a convincing 4-2 win at struggling Bradford City in which the Sky Blues set aside their problem this season of creating chances but fluffing their lines in front of goal.
Goals from midfield too bode well as Tom Bayliss scored his first of the season to effectively clinch the game at 4-1, despite a second Bantams goal for Anthony O’Connor and a late third disallowed for handball which saw a red card for George Miller.
Forward Jordy Hiwula again started on the left side and again impressed, scoring his second in two games with a fine breakaway and one-on-one finish after his opener at Southend on Saturday had set Coventry up for an impressive 2-1 away win in Essex.
The other goals against Bradford came from industrious strikers Jonson Clarke-Harris – with a close range header after a Tom Davies knock-back from a second-minute Michael Doyle corner – and Conor Chaplin, with a stunning free kick from outside the box.
Mark Robins said Sky Blues’ goals where “like buses”, adopting the proverb of waiting a long time for one, then many come.
While being complimentary about his team, he emphasised they could still learn and improve.
He said: “I think we’ve got to be happy with the result even if the performance wasn’t great. We’ve conceded two poor goals and not passed it as well as we normally do.
“The pitch was slick, we’ve created quite a few chances, and taken four of them, away from home, which is outstanding.
“But I think if we’re honest we haven’t played as well as we have been doing, so from that point of view that was disappointing – but I’m not trying to put a dampner on it.
“I just want the players to understand that to concede two goals like we have done against better teams will cost us.
“The goals, the finishes, the corners, the setplays, everything was good. It was a bit nail-biting towards the end.
“But I think (Miller) did put the ball in with his hand- it appeared that way to me. The referees done well to see that, I think.
“He got a lot of stick for making decisions, but I don’t think there were many that he got wrong. He’s let the advantage play and that’s what you want. You want an attacking end-to-end game at times and that’s what we got.”
Speaking on the opening goal, Robins said, “I thought it was a good set play, decent header from Tom Davies back in, and Jono’s got his head on it and put it in the back of the net.
“They are working hard from the setplays and it just got better. We got a second fairly quickly, and then a third one in the second half from Jordy, with Tom Bayliss rounding it off with a really nice finish, stepping inside his man and put the ball in the net.”
