Hull City 0 - 0 Coventry City

Coventry close in on top-flight return with Hull draw



Coventry City moved 12 points clear at the top of the Championship table and ever closer to a Premier League return after a goalless draw at fellow promotion hopefuls Hull City.

While it was a meeting of two of the division's most prolific sides, chances were limited in the high-stakes game at the MKM Stadium.

Coventry had a second-half shout for a penalty turned down when a cross hit the arm of Tigers defender Lewie Coyle but appeals from Sky Blues' fans in the stands were more vocal than anything the players followed up with on the pitch.

The draw inches Frank Lampard's Coventry side within four points of ending their 25-year top-flight absence, while also ensuring fifth-placed Hull remain entrenched in the play-off spots and are still capable of getting into the top two.

Eight wins from Coventry's previous nine matches restored the Sky Blues as runaway leaders, their promotion back to the Premier League increasingly viewed as a formality with less than four weeks of the season remaining.

Hull are among the automatic promotion hopefuls who have stuttered below them and, while they dropped points to relegation-battling Oxford United three days earlier, the Tigers highlighted just how hard Lampard's side will have to work to get over the line.

The hosts were quick to showcase their own promotion credentials with a brand of relentless attacking football that had Coventry under huge early pressure.

After Cody Drameh found himself on the end of two chances inside the first five minutes, Joe Gelhardt sent a shot just wide for the Tigers.

Hull's biggest chance of the first half, however, came from a goalkeeping mistake after Carl Rushworth clattered into team-mate Liam Kitching as he tried to pluck a teasing cross from the air.

And while the ball fell invitingly for John Egan in the box, Kitching was able to recover and reposition himself for a goal-saving block while Rushworth was still lying on the ground.

Coventry improved after that scare but failed to trouble Hull keeper Ivor Pandur at any stage.

Containment remained the aim for Coventry after the break when Matt Grimes was booked for cynically pulling Amir Hadziahmetovic back as the Bosnia-Herzegovina international threatened to spring free.

With video assistant referee [VAR] technology not in use in the Championship, the most decisive moment of the second half, when the ball struck Coyle's arm in the box, was missed and barely disputed.

Beyond that, Coventry failed to generate a second-half shot on target while Hull were limited to tame efforts from Mohamed Belloumi and Gelhardt.

Coventry City head coach Frank Lampard told BBC Radio CWR:

"I loved it. It's a clean sheet and point. The pitch is really difficult, and not conducive to how we want to play but we had to deal with it.

"And I thought once we rode the early moments of the game, we grabbed it in the first half and started to play a little bit.

"In football, you can't have it all your own way. And when you are under pressure, as we were at different parts of the game, I loved how the team dug in and did all the right things.

"We have five games to go and to be in the position we're in, from our point of view, we need to cut out the noise and just deal with Sheffield Wednesday in front of us.

"Everyone will expect us to win it [Saturday's match against Wednesday] from the outside, but we have to put that to the side and approach the game with real professionalism.

"It may not get us absolutely over the line, but we will know it makes it a lot, lot closer."