Post 14 - Championship match day 12, Coventry City v Cardiff City

Cardiff City cut the lead of league leaders QPR down to two points as they took advantage of the Londoners scoreless draw away to Swansea with a gritty win away to Coventry.

The Bluebirds travelled to Coventry in confident mood having won 3 out of 4 matches since first tasting defeat this season in mid September.  They also arrived with a good recent record at the Ricoh Stadium and would have quite rightly fancied their chances of coming back to South Wales with all 3 points.

Cardiff made just the one change to the side that prevailed victorious on the weekend, with Craig Bellamy coming in for Stephen McPhail.  Bellamy played on the left wing and Whittingham moving into the central role occupied by McPhail on Saturday.

After their dreadful start against Bristol City on Saturday the Bluebirds would've been keen to get off to a better one against Coventry and when they were awarded a penalty with less than 4 minutes on the clock, after Ben Turner was adjudged to have brought down Michael Chopra inside the 6 yard box, they had the perfect chance to do just that.  Turner escaped with a yellow card and Peter Whittingham stepped up to coolly slot home into the bottom right hand corner for his 3rd goal in two matches.  It was an important penalty for Whittingham, who had missed his previous two this season.  A third successive miss from the spot would have probably seen the role taken away from him, but his two goals on the weekend would have given him his confidence back in front of goal and he sent 'keeper Westwood the wrong way to give City the early lead.

Many of the 1300 or so Cardiff fans who made the trip to the Midlands (admittedly myself included) probably thought that a rout could well be on, but Coventry themselves have made a good start to the season and prior to the game were sitting just below the play off positions and unbeaten in their last three games.

But it was Cardiff who looked more threatening, Bothroyd had a decent looking penalty shout turned down and Gypes turned and shot from inside the area only to be denied by Westwood.  Meanwhile Heaton, when called into action was at the top of his game and made a decent save low to his left after a decent strike by Cranie from outside the area.

And so the half proceeded.  Cardiff were unable to find any real fluency, although in truth Coventry never really allowed them to play as they wished.  Bothroyd -booed by the home fans at every chance - didn't seem his usual self (turned out his foot had been stamped on) and Bellamy - also booed enthusiastically by his ex club's supporters - and Burke were being well marshalled by their respective markers.

It looked as though Cardiff would go into the break a goal to the good and it would have been a lead they'd deserved.  But with just 2 minutes remaining of the first 45, Hudson gave the ball away on the half way line, the ball was played forward to Gary McSheffrey, who cut inside easily evading McNaughton and Gypes and curled the ball into the right corner from 12 yards to level the score.  It was a decent enough goal, but one that could've been prevented nevertheless.

Coventry started the second half the brighter of the two and initially looked more likely to get a second goal, but City held firm and as the game grew older the more it looked as though one more goal could win it.  From a Cardiff point of view though, a draw would've been a respectable enough result, despite having had such a promising start.

Jones replaced the tiring Chopra with Koumas with 20 minutes remaining and then 10 minutes later Keough came on for Bellamy.  It was a good run out for the returning captain, but I'm sure the Cardiff fans will see more inspiring performances from him in the season to come, he is, after all, new to the team and probably still adjusting to the type of football being played in a division lower than he has become accustomed  to.

The defining moment of the game came with just 3 minutes of normal time remaining.  Burke, who had worked tirelessly all game but yet to any avail finally got past the Sky Blues left back and from the byline picked out Bothroyd with a low cross who neatly flicked the ball into the net from inside the 6 yard box in front of the Bluebirds fans.  Up until that moment it was hard to see where the goal may come from, but there are plenty of goals in this team, even when not playing to its full potential.

Moments later Burke again beat his man but instead of passing to the impressive Koumas kept going alone.  Although he should have passed to Koumas, who had the goal at his mercy, it was a fantastic run and if he had managed to finished it, it would have been a fine goal.  Cardiff held onto their slender lead for the remainder of the game and picked up all three points for the 3rd season in a row at this ground, no mean feat.

City travel to Leeds next Monday evening to face a team who although have had a solid start to their campaign, have leaked enough goals to suggest there is no reason the Bluebirds can't take as many points away from Elland Road as they did last night.

Result - Coventry City 1 Cardiff City 2

Scorers - City: Whittingham (pen 5) Bothroyd (87), Coventry: McSheffrey (44)

Attendance - 14,604

My man of the match:  Gypes was solid and Seyi was his usual robust self, but Burke gets my vote.  He didn't have his best game in a City shirt, but then again no one did. but he kept going, kept trying to beat his man and eventually wore him down, got past him and set up the winner.  His performance typified the type of never say die attitude City are showing so far this season.