Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Coventry City and Southampton at the Coventry Building Society Arena on Wednesday | Samuel Edozie cancels out Haji Wright's opener to extend Saints' unbeaten run to 13 games
Wednesday 13 December 2023 23:24, UK
Samuel Edozie scored his first goal since September to extend Southampton's unbeaten run to 13 games with a 1-1 draw at Coventry.
The former Manchester City winger had been an unused substitute in the Saints' last three outings, but came off the bench to cancel out Haji Wright's opener.
Russell Martin's men pushed tirelessly for a winner in the closing stages, but the draw keeps Southampton firmly in the play-off positions - 12 points behind second-placed Ipswich.
The Sky Blues were forced to withstand heavy pressure against the possession-hungry Saints in the first half as Adam Armstrong attempted to add to his 12 Sky Bet Championship goals this season.
The forward scored 20 goals for Coventry on loan from Newcastle in the 2015-16 season and forced home goalkeeper Brad Collins into action after 10 minutes when he cut inside from the right and fired a low effort at goal.
Bobby Thomas came flying out of defence to block Armstrong's next effort after a smart short corner routine before Ellis Simms hooked off the line.
Ryan Manning almost put Southampton ahead when he met a Kyle Walker-Peters cross midway through the first half.
But Coventry withstood the pressure, seeing just 24 per cent of the ball in the opening 45 minutes, before Jamie Allen fired wide from the edge of the box.
Simms had scored in just one of the 21 appearances for the Sky Blues prior to the Saints' arrival and Gavin Bazunu stood firm to block the former Everton man's effort after he was played in by Tatsuhiro Sakamoto.
Coventry's positive end to the half gave Robins' men confidence after the break and they were inches from going ahead through Callum O'Hare, fresh off his first goals in over 18 months against Birmingham last time out.
Milan van Ewijk created space for himself down the right and pulled back for O'Hare, whose sweetly struck effort crashed off the crossbar and away to safety.
The Sky Blues were ahead just two minutes later when Wright found himself in acres of space inside the box and shifted the ball inside before slotting home his sixth of the season.
The opening goal came following some good work from O'Hare, who held off Manning before calmly slotting in Wright with the Southampton defence all at sea.
Southampton's search for an equaliser saw Stuart Armstrong force Collins into a low save to his left, whilst Martin introduced Edozie alongside Ryan Fraser from the bench.
Both substitutes were heavily involved in the equaliser just seven minutes later as Fraser's cross was nodded on by Adam Armstrong to Edozie, who controlled the ball with his chest before finding the far corner.
From then on it was all Southampton as Joe Aribo's left-footed effort whistled past the upright.
Thomas had his heart in his mouth when he diverted Fraser's cross agonisingly wide of the post, whilst Adam Armstrong's first effort was blocked and his well-struck follow-up brushed the top of the crossbar.
Coventry's Mark Robins:
"You can see that we are growing in stature and confidence. Four points from two tough home games is really pleasing. They had more possession in the first half. They are a quality team, but we worked really hard out of possession and there were not many chances in the first half. There was little between the teams in terms of chances created. We spoke at half-time about keeping the ball a bit more and we did that much better.
"We got more chances, grew in confidence, got the goal - a brilliant goal. Haji got into a good position, took the extra touch and you can see him growing in confidence. We worked hard in possession, out of possession, there were some good performances, but we were out of position for their goal. I think the way we played will give us a lot of confidence and it was a deserved point. The players are starting to look like they know each other now, they work really hard and they get that little bit of confidence. We try and keep people together and the performances have been really good, some play tonight was outstanding."
Southampton's Russell Martin:
"Just focus on ourselves and keep growing. I'm really proud of where the team is now, there's been some frustrating results in that run, Rotherham draw, Huddersfield draw, then we've won games late. I'm really proud of the players, our job is to continue to grow, focus on ourselves and see where it takes us. Any other season, the last seven or eight, we'd be in the top two or within one or two points, so we can't impact that. Two teams have made an incredible start. They score more goals than us, is the one thing they have over us at the minute. We don't put games to bed, we should score a couple tonight but we don't, and that's the next step for us.
"I thought we were really good tonight, against a really good, well organised team. I felt their only chances were going to come from pouncing on a mistake, they scored from a goal that came from that and they had a couple of moments in transition. The reaction to going 1-0 down, because we haven't been behind for a while, was fantastic. The subs had a brilliant impact. The last 10 minutes became really open because they're trying to win, we're trying to win, nobody was hanging on."
