Knill - A valuable point

Alan Knill paid tribute to Scunthorpe after a draw with Coventry kept them in with a chance of staying up.

Scunthorpe boss satisfied with draw at Coventry

Alan Knill paid tribute to his Scunthorpe side after a 1-1 draw with Coventry kept them in with a chance of staving off relegation. Marlon King broke the deadlock for the Sky Blues with his 12th goal of the season after just five minutes, only for Scunthorpe to equalise courtesy of a deflected effort from impressive on-loan Leeds winger Ramon Nunez. The result, combined with Crystal Palace's goalless draw at Doncaster, kept the Iron three points adrift of safety. But Knill was not disappointed with the scoreline and preferred to stay positives about the prospects of his side staying afloat. "Absolutely it's a valuable point," said Knill, who only took charge of Scunthorpe at the end of March. "If you can't win then don't lose, it's always a point in the right direction. "We all have three games left, you don't know what happens. Everybody has tough fixtures, like ourselves, but if you show that commitment and effort you give yourself a chance. And that's all we're doing. "I knew when I walked in with eight games to go it was going to be really tough, but we've given ourselves a chance. No-one expected us to still be in there with three games to go." Knill added: "Obviously if I'm biased I'll say (we deserved) three points but if you look at it logically I think a point was a fair result for both teams. "We both had chances and on another day we could have won it, we could have lost it. It was a really good game of football. "I thought we played pretty well coming back from a goal down."

Thorn reaction

Coventry announced on Friday morning that caretaker manager Andy Thorn was on their shortlist for taking the vacant position on a permanent basis, and the draw with Scunthorpe extended his fine record at the helm. The point also mathematically secured the Sky Blues' Championship status, although that was all but safe going into the clash, and Thorn saluted his side's display. "We felt this was always going to be a really tough game, they're in good form," he said. "Going in front as we did, we started well, but credit to them, they came back into it and we had dig in a bit. "But we stuck to our principles and I was really pleased with that. We kept moving the ball, and created good chances. On another day they'd have gone in. "I was pleased with that type of performance and I'm sure everyone enjoyed it, it was a proper football match." Thorn added: "We're on the right tracks and doing the right things, as long we carry on doing that we'll be all right."