Stoke City 0-1 Coventry City: Ellis Simms hits Sky Blues winner as Potters lose again
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Ellis Simms now has six goals for Coventry City this season
Ellis Simms scored his second goal in successive games as Coventry City beat Stoke City to rack up their fifth Championship win since the turn of the year.
The summer signing from Everton, who also scored in the 2-2 midweek draw at Plymouth, was set up by Callum O'Hare to plunder the only goal of the game on 51 minutes - finding the bottom corner for his sixth of the season.
Sixth-placed Coventry, who have lost just one Championship game since early December, move to within a point of fifth-placed West Bromwich Albion.
Stoke's fifth defeat in six league matches leaves Steven Schumacher's side 19th, just three points clear of trouble - and, despite the tonic of last weekend's 1-0 home win over QPR, they were again booed off.
Both managers made six changes to the teams that started their midweek games. That resulted in a real lack of first-half fluidity, although Coventry did go very close in one triple let-off for the home side.
Stoke keeper Jack Bonham saved Haji Wright's header via a deflection off Ben Wilmot, before blocking Simms' effort. The rebound then fell kindly to O'Hare, who looked certain to score, but his first-time shot diverted off Wilmot on to the left post and away to safety.
The Potters did finally go behind on 51 minutes when Wright caught Ki-Jana Hoever in possession, O'Hare pounced on the loose ball to instinctively play Simms in down the inside-left channel and the big striker coolly ran on to slide home a low right-foot shot from close range.
Stoke boss Schumacher made a triple substitution just after the hour mark in an attempt to inject some life into his side.
Nathan Lowe's left-foot shot on the turn went just over, while Lewis Baker's goal-bound attempt deflected behind for a corner off Sky Blues defender Bobby Thomas and substitute Million Manhoef could only find the side-netting.
But, by then, Coventry should have doubled their lead when, after a neat one-two with Josh Eccles, US international Wright blazed his shot over.
Who's next?
After the tonic of keeping a first clean sheet since before Christmas, Coventry are back in action next Friday night when they host bogey side Preston North End.
Stoke's next game is the following day at Cardiff City.
Stoke City boss Steven Schumacher told BBC Radio Stoke:
"The players' effort is definitely there. I can't fault that. But to lose to a mistake is a killer blow.
"Nobody means to make those sort of mistakes, but for it be the deciding moment of the game is disappointing.
"It was quite a close game, quite tight. There wasn't a lot in it between the two teams.
"The players who started kept a really good Coventry team relatively quiet. And then the subs who came on in the last half an hour played with a good tempo. We kept going right to the end and showed good energy but we just didn't have that little bit of quality you need."
Coventry City boss Mark Robins told BBC CWR:
"That's the best Ellis Simms has played for us - he picked his spot well for the goal. It was a really good finish.
"And it's great for us to have got a clean sheet. That will do our confidence the world of good as it's our first in 12 games.
"It just looked like a really tired performance from both teams because of the amount of games that we've got.
"But,when the fixture list came out, we looked at it and thought that's going to be a tough week. And the fact that we've picked up seven points is brilliant."