Port Vale 0 - 2 Coventry City

[dutchman]

[dutchman]

Sky Blues claim first league win this season



Coventry City hauled themselves off the foot of the table when goals from Marvin Sordell and Chris McCann gave them their first league win at the 11th time of asking.

In their first outing since Tony Mowbray’s resignation the Sky Blues produced an excellent all-round display to tame a Vale side who went into the game with a 100-per-cent home record.

Mark Venus made three changes for his first caretaker assignment – two of them prompted by injuries to Reice Charles-Cook and Kyel Reid – with Lee Burge taking over in goal while Danie; Agyei and Andre Wright started up front alongside Marvin Sordell.

After a canny opening spell, Vale seemed to be building up a head of steam as Paterson fired an angled shot into the side netting and Jones volleyed just over after Burge had punched Hart’s free-kick to the edge of the area.

But a slick City counter-attack saw Turnbull glance a header just wide from Bigirimana’s free-kick after Streete had been booked for his foul on McCann. Some brilliant centre-circle interplay between McCann, Bigirimana and Stevenson cracked Vale’s defence again but as Agyei dashed through to clip his shot past Alnwick referee Busby – clearly not a fan of the advantage rule – unaccountably pulled play back for a free-kick five yards outside the area.

This time Bigirimana slid a low shot round the far post but the Sky Blues were now in the groove and after Agyei’s shot had been saved by Alnwick they made the breakthrough in the 35th minute – Bigirimana winning the ball off Brown and making good progress down the right to tee up Sordell for a fierce finish.

City opened the second half with an encouraging surge on a by-now saturated pitch but Vale responded and Streete’s shot was charged down after a half-cleared free-kick sparked a fierce goalmouth scramble. Having made two substitutions at half-time Vale boss Bruno Ribeiro had to replace one of them, Anton Forrester, inside ten minutes.

The spate of seemingly unforced errors from both sides suggested the conditions were trickier than they appeared but Alnwick had to retrieve a glaring mistake in the 67th minute.

The keeper aimed an underam throw at Streete unaware that Agyei was returning from a spell of touchline treatment and had to dive full-length as the Burnley youngster Five minutes later Vale’s luck ran out – the back-four fatally wrong-footed as Agyei intercepted an attempted Taveres clearance and slipped a perfectly-timed pass to McCann who thrashed it inside the near post.

The City fans were in full-voice by this time, taunting Vale’s ‘fire-drill’ evacuation. And although they survived a scare in the first of six overtime minutes – Sterry dashing in to block Paterson’s close-range shot – they almost had a third goal to cheer when Tudgay couldn’t quite get a clean touch to a pass from fellow substitute Lameiras.