Coventry City 0 - 4 Stoke City
Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2023 5:25 pm
Sky Blues play-off push dented by home thumping
Coventry City saw their play-off hopes dented as they suffered a 4-0 Legends Day defeat to mid-table Stoke in arguably their worst league performance of the season at home.
The Sky Blues conceded as early as the sixth minute and were 2-0 down by the break at the CBS Arena. But despite a determined push to get back into the game in the second half, the Potters scored twice in the space six minutes to put the game beyond Coventry.
The visitors opened the scoring when a counter attack saw Stoke move the ball from right to left in the final third, leaving Tyrese Campbell free to cross the ball into to near post where Jacob Brown got a touch to beat Ben Wilson.
Callum Doyle headed off the line from a corner shortly after before Ben Wilson dived low to prevent Will Smallbone increasing the lead just after the 15 minute mark as the visitors looked threatening on the attack and largely in control of Mark Robins’ men, who were awful in the first half.
The Potters had carved out 11 attempts on goal with five hitting the target by the half-hour mark compared to City, who had just one attempt and one on target.
The visitors extended their advantage in the 40th minute when a long ball over the top saw Campbell race 40 yards clear of the nearest defender with Coventry furious there was no offside flag. Wilson tried to stand up to Campbell - but the Stoke man drew the keeper and knocked the ball past him.
Fankaty Dabo passed up a glorious opportunity early in the second half when he skinned Dujon Sterling and then cut inside Phil Jagielka in the box but hit his shot wide of the far post when he looked favourite to score. And Viktor Gyokeres failed to bury a loose ball after a good run from Wilson-Esbrand, with the keeper scrambling back to his line to make a stop.
However, the visitors grabbed a third in the 71st minute when a rare second half attack saw Josh Laurent hold several defenders off and lay the ball back to Smallbone who placed his shot into the far bottom corner, and Ki-Jana Hoever wrapped things up six minutes later when he went past Wilson-Esbrand and Doyle to slot home at the near post.