Norwich City 3-0 Coventry City: Josh Sargent scores again as Canaries go top
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Josh Sargent has scored five goals in his past five Norwich appearances
Josh Sargent scored his fifth goal of the season as Norwich City brushed aside bottom-of-the-table Coventry City to go top of the Championship with a fifth consecutive league victory.
A bright start by the Canaries saw Teemu Pukki put them ahead with his first goal of the season, the Finland striker slotting the ball home after Marcelino Nunez won possession.
Pukki then teed up a second goal in first-half injury time, combining with Aaron Ramsay to give Sargent a simple finish from close range.
Winless Coventry, who remain at the foot of the table on one point after a fourth loss in a row, felt aggrieved that Kyle McFadzean had a goal disallowed for offside when trailing 1-0.
But Norwich remained on top after the break and made sure of the points with nine minutes left when Todd Cantwell found Sargent, whose astute pass was turned low into the net by substitute Kieran Dowell.
Pressure had mounted on boss Dean Smith after a winless three-game start to the season yielded only a solitary point, but then four consecutive victories set them up for a confident, energetic start at Carrow Road on Saturday.
Ramsay shot narrowly wide and Cantwell had a shot well saved by keeper Ben Wilson before the predictable breakthrough.
Equally predictable was the scorer, with Pukki instantly controlling a pass and coolly finishing with his second touch to end a seven-game goalless streak.
Former Nottingham Forest striker Tyler Walker sent a powerful shot wide as the visitors responded, and they thought they had levelled only for McFadzean's strike to be ruled out.
But in-form American Sargent doubled the lead, tapping the ball in after some typically incisive attacking play by the hosts.
A spirited Sky Blues start to the second half saw Viktor Gyokeres waste a glorious one-on-one chance and Fankaty Dabo send a shot narrowly wide before Norwich resumed control.
Smith's men had the better chances against a Coventry side who have only played five league matches because of their home pitch having been ruled unplayable at the start for the season, and sealed their 17th win in 25 Championship home games when Dowell beat Wilson with a composed finish.
Norwich boss Dean Smith:
"It's never easy to win five games on the trot in any league, let alone this one, so obviously I am very pleased with the result. It keeps the momentum going, which is important, ahead of another tough game at Burnley next week.
"I was delighted with the performance, especially in the first half when some of our movement was excellent and we scored two well-worked goals. Everyone played their part and they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
"Coventry made it difficult for us, which I knew they would, but we should really have had it wrapped up at half-time.
"We let our standards drop for 10 or 20 minutes in the second half but then the substitutes came on and gave us a lift and gave the crowd a lift too. That's what you need, good players challenging for a place in the side and coming off the bench and making an impact."
Coventry boss Mark Robins:
"The gameplan that we set out was the right one, we just didn't execute it properly and I think we needed to be aggressive. We've played against one of the league's top teams but we've made them look even better than they are and we made ourselves look worse in the process.
"We were poor mentally and we gave a goal away and didn't respond. We weathered the storm after and huffed and puffed a little, got a goal, but they've disallowed that, and we didn't deserve anything from the game after that.
"Norwich are a good side and they move you around by running off the back of you and rotating into space that is difficult to deal with all the time, and had we been aggressive we could've built on that.
"The second half was better for 25 minutes of it and then the rest of it was in their hands as we looked like we'd ran out of steam a little. There were one or two feeling worse for wear for today's action."