City show their steel

The Sky Blues turned in another impressive display at the Ricoh Arena to continue their long unbeaten home run and keep alive slim hopes of a play-off place at the end of the season.

From the outset it was clear that this wasn't going to be the prettiest of games.

City's main tactic was to hit long balls in search of Dele Adebola while United's was to hit them in search of Neil Shipperley and Ade Akinbiyi.

The difference on the day was that the Sky Blues back four did not make any mistakes in handling the opposition strikers, and in Stern John and Gary McSheffrey, City had that little bit extra up front when the ball came out of the sky.

A poor back-header from Chris Morgan allowed McSheffrey to nip in and score the first and after an excellent second goal, when Adebola tucked away Hall's cross, City were able to sit back on their lead, much in the manner of the Wolves game over New Year.

The stats afterwards showed that the Blades had 60% of the possession, but like Wolves that day, they were resticted to tame long shots by the tenacious Sky Blues defence and midfield.

Stern John was well denied by Paddy Kenny in the first-half while Jagielka went close for the visitors in the second but the game had been won in the opening half-an-hour.

The final whistle left visiting fans wishing the season was ending now, while home supporters would like it to have just started!

Every player performed their job superbly but man of the match had to be that bloke who looked Marcus Hall and played in his shirt but performed more like a combination of Paulo Maldini and Roberto Carlos.

Superb at the back against the tricky Webber and excellent going forward as well where his distribution and crossing were much improved. 'I am delighted today from a Coventry City perspective.

'It was a tremendous effort from my group of players.

'Rather than feel sorry for myself, I am more determined and positive than ever.

'We never do things the easy way at this club and we'll go to Norwich next week to win the game from the start.

'We lost this game because of the mistakes we made and had we got a goal back with 20 minutes left we could have got a result.'

'When teams are going for promotion, there is always a period when you lose games and doubts start creeping in, but I think Sheffield United should look at the league table and continue to look at the league table, because they are a good side.'

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