Queens Park Rangers 1-3 Coventry City: Ellis Simms scores his first Sky Blues goals in Loftus Road win
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Ellis Simms arrived at Coventry from Everton this summer
Ellis Simms scored his first Coventry City goals to help his side to victory away at Queen's Park Rangers.
The summer signing from Everton wasted a couple of chances before scoring twice in the space of seven second half minutes, either side of a Josh Eccles goal, to ease the Sky Blues to a much-needed win.
Defeat means QPR have now gone nine home games without a win, but they were denied the lead by a stunning Ben Wilson save from Lyndon Dykes' header in the first half.
Kenneth Paal scored a consolation goal for Rangers in the last minute of normal time.
Simms was brought in by Coventry in the summer to replace last season's top scorer Viktor Gyokeres, who earned a move to Sporting Lisbon after netting 24 times in 2022-23.
Simms has endured a frustrating start to his Coventry career, failing to score in his first eight games, and that looked set to continue as he fired wide from a tight angle and then twice got behind the QPR defence only to be denied by a block from defender Steve Cook and a good save by goalkeeper Asmir Begovic.
But his luck changed on 56 minutes when Jay Dasilva's free kick was headed back across the area by Luis Binks and fell kindly for the striker to slot home.
It was the seventh time this season Coventry have scored first, but they had only converted one of those previous leads into a win.
Any nerves among their fans about that statistic were quickly calmed as Eccles' shot deflected in after Matt Godden's bounced off a teammate to end up at his feet.
The game was up for hapless Rangers, who are the only team in the entire league to have two nine-match winless runs at home since the start of last season, when referee Tom Nield denied them what looked to be a penalty when Sinclair Armstrong went down under a challenge from Wilson .
Simms made the points secure by tucking away Jamie Allen's cross before Paal gave the unhappy home support something to cheer by finishing from Armstrong's cross.
QPR manager Gareth Ainsworth told BBC Radio London:
"The officiating wasn't good enough for the Championship. There was an offside goal and an absolutely stonewall penalty. I've been in to see the officials and they know and almost apologised. That's great but doesn't change the result.
"I'm also gutted at my lads' 20 minutes where they seemed to collapse. Maybe the offside goal really dented them but we were wide open then for two counter-attacks and that's very poor.
"At 2-0 Sinclair's penalty is a stone-waller and that gets us back in the game and we get something out of it.
"But it's 3-1 at home and I'm not stupid. I'm a football manager. It's not good enough when people just look at the result and I'm sure the haters will be out there loving this one."
Coventry manager Mark Robins told BBC CWR:
"It was really important we got the win. The longer it goes on, the more it can dent confidence, for the players and the supporters.
"We spoke at half-time about what we needed to do a little bit better, and we found spaces, got Jamie Allen on the ball a little bit more and scored a fantastic goal from a really good ball into the box.
"It's hit Binksy and landed at his (Simms') feet and he really took it early - that was the chance he needed, where he's got no time to think about it and has just finished it.
"He wasn't trying too hard, but you can snatch at things or try to manipulate the ball, and it's not there for you against pretty good, experienced defenders."