Coventry City vs Sheffield United. Sky Bet Championship.
The Coventry Building Society ArenaAttendance17,913.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash between Coventry and Sheffield United at the Coventry Building Society Arena as a late Martyn Waghorn penalty sealed victory for the Sky Blues.
Wednesday 19 October 2022 23:31, UK
Martyn Waghorn scored his first Coventry goal for over a year as the Sky Blues moved off the bottom of the Sky Bet Championship with a 1-0 win over Sheffield United.
The striker came off the bench to score a penalty in the 87th minute to make it back-to-back wins for Mark Robins' men for the first time since April after their 1-0 victory against Cardiff at the weekend.
The defeat leaves Paul Heckingbottom's men without a win since the international break, despite hitting both the crossbar and the post in the second half.
Coventry's only change saw Michael Rose start for the first time since 14 August.
Fresh from their action-packed 3-3 draw with Blackpool that also saw four red cards, United made three changes after Wes Foderingham's appeal was rejected, so Adam Davies made his Blades debut in goal after signing from Stoke in January.
Anel Ahmedhodzic also made his return to the Blades starting line-up after coming on as a substitute at the weekend following a four-match injury lay-off, in place of James McAtee. There was also a recall for Oli McBurnie in favour of Billy Sharp.
McAtee was called upon after just 10 minutes when Rhys Norrington-Davies was stretchered off with a calf injury.
United looked assured in the opening minutes as the returning Ahmedhodzic saw a shot blocked from outside the area.
The hosts had picked up their first away win of the season on Saturday, as Viktor Gyokeres scored his and the Sky Blues' second winning goal of the season.
The Swedish striker battled away throughout the opening period, but it was Matty Godden who had the hosts' first effort, flashing a half volley wide after the ball sat up nicely for him on the edge of the box.
The flash point of a first half that failed to yield a shot on target surrounded substitute McAtee, whose crunching tackle on Fankaty Dabo left the wing-back in a heap but was deemed only worthy of a yellow card by referee Keith Stroud.
Following a melee that involved both sides in front of the United bench, play resumed with Dabo himself and Ben Sheaf then booked in quick succession to round out a scrappy opening 45 minutes.
The Blades came close on 51 minutes when James Norwood's deep, curling free-kick rattled the crossbar after the travelling United support demanded Stroud show Dabo his second yellow card for a foul on the touchline.
Iliman Ndiaye notched the first shot on target of the evening just before the hour mark when he latched onto Tommy Doyle's quick free kick and flashed a shot across Ben Wilson's goal, before the Coventry stopper gathered McBurnie's tame header shortly after.
There was agony once again when Ndiaye's piledriver thundered against the outside of the post before Ahmedhodzic's powerful header was saved by Wilson.
But the sucker punch came late on, Ben Osborn's mis-timed challenge brought down Gyokeres and Waghorn stepped up to dispatch his first goal since netting against Middlesbrough last September to haul the Sky Blues above Huddersfield in the table.
Coventry's Mark Robins: "The dishing out of yellow cards meant that something had to change. What it did do, it gave us the opportunity to change, to bring in match winners, we wanted to get Gus (Hamer) on the pitch, Kasey Palmer onto the pitch, Martyn Waghorn onto the pitch, it gives us something different, a bit more energy and Waggy was outstanding in that 15-20 minute spell.
"He's ended up being the match winner and rightfully so, we managed to get a really decent move down the right-hand side where Vik (Gyokeres) got in behind, probably only for the msecond or third time in the evening and he ends up getting hauled down for the penalty, stuck away brilliantly."
Sheffield United's Paul Heckingbottom: We were strong, without the ball we were strong, the start of the season affected them (Coventry) but they've been keeping clean sheets of late, so we knew it was going to be a tight, tough game.
"With the players we have missing we made certain errors we don't usually make, without the ball or we've been soft in certain moments so we certainly didn't want to be tonight and we weren't. It's two errors when I look back, two moments which I weren't happy with. One's the penalty and one's a player just left a runner from a throw-in and that's it without the ball, so there's big improvements there."
