Coventry City 1 - 2 Fleetwood Town

Sky Blues fall to defeat against Steven Pressley's Cod Army



Steven Pressley put the boot into his old team’s promotion prospects by steering his relegation battlers to a shock win at the Ricoh Arena.

Fleetwood grabbed a counter-attack lead via Wes Burns and although Tony Mowbray seemed to have pulled a point out of the fire with a triple substitution that saw Marcus Tudgay equalise, David Ball’s stunning winner sent the 111 Cod Army fans heading home happy.

Mowbray, not surprisingly, named an unchanged side although a revamped bench saw teenage keeper Corey Addai replace Lee Burge – out for the rest of the season after shoulder surgery – while Marcus Tudgay got the nod ahead of Darius Henderson.

Steven Pressley, in contrast, made five changes from the side that lost 1-0 at Rochdale in their previous outing.

Top scorer Armstrong caused Fleetwood some early jitters, clearing the bar with a 25-yard snap shot before curling wide from the edge of the box after a flowing crossfield move.

Vincelot shot straight at Maxwell from similar range but City’s pass completion rate was well below average as they struggled to find gaps in the visitors’ defence.

Fleetwood briefly broke out of defensive mode with a good overlap but Burns’s deflection was clutched under the bar by Charles-Cook.

Murphy dragged a shot wide of the far post after a good Cole-Stokes-Maddison combination and, as City began to apply some concerted pressure, Cole and Maddison had shots charged down while Maxwell saved Stokes’s back-header from a Maddison corner.

Fleetwood were convinced they should have had a penalty just before half-time as Hunter first tangled with Cargill and then tumbled as Charles-Cook dived at his feet.

And having lambasted the linesman and the fourth official, Pressley made a point of waiting for the referee to give him an earful as the teams headed for the dressing rooms.

Somewhat surprisingly the Fleetwood boss was back in his technical area for the start of the second half to see Coles’s blast charged down before Maddison hooked a shot fractionally wide of the far post after excellent work by Murphy.

And his mood soared ten minutes into the second half as his side snatched the lead from a classic counter-attack, Hunter breaking down the right and whipping in a cross for the unmarked Burns to head past the unprotected Charles-Cook.

City seemed stunned by the setback, Charles-Cook first diverting Bell’s dangerous low cross before blocking Hunter’s close-range shot.

Mowbray was prompted into drastic measures, pitching on Ruben Lameiras, Marcus Tudgay and Marc-Antoine Fortune for the final 25 minutes.

And the shake-up had the desired effect, Lameiras dragging a shot wide of the near post after good work by Fortune and the pair combining well again to give Armstrong the chance for a cut-back that Tudgay steered home despite Maxwell’s desperate dive.

Pressley had one more trick up his sleeve, however, sending on veteran Shola Ameobi. His first contribution was a searching cross from the leftr and although Charles-Cook did well to block Ryan’s blast the ball was recycled to Ball who left the keeper rooted to the spot with a ferocious 20-yarder into the top corner.

Attendance: 11,160 (111 away)