Blues 1 Sky Blues 0

Coventry City made the short trip to St Andrew's on Saturday to face Birmingham City in the Championship.

Amid a backdrop of mounting unhappiness with the club's hierarchy over the lack of new signings, defeat by Leicester in the league and a League Cup exit the Sky Blues were in desperate need of a result against their local rivals.

Blues however were looking to start their promotion challenge after dropping out of the Premier League last season and gave home debuts to a raft of new faces.

In a very similar game to last weekend's City were again more than a match for a team expected to be challenging at the end of the season but were again undone by a lack of quality in the final third of the pitch.

'restricted'

The Sky Blues restricted their hosts well but created only a handful of chances and in those circumstances it will only take one goal to end the game on the losing side.

That was again the case on Saturday as Keith Fahey netted on 73 minutes to settle a tight clash in the home side's favour.

While Andy Thorn will have again been pleased with his team's endeavour and attempts to play the game the right way he will know that the lack of options available to him in attacking areas is in danger of turning the season into a desperate fight for survival.

Only the most optimistic of supporters will expect the situation to have changed by the time City travel to Crystal Palace on Tuesday night.

Speaking after the game Thorn commented: "Everything is stacked against us at the present time but I have good bunch of lads and if continue to apply ourselves we will start picking up the points.

"We controlled our own performance and frustrated Birmingham. We just switched off for a couple of seconds and the ball finished in the back of the net.

"I thought Sammy Clingan ran the game and apart of the result I cannot fault the players."

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