Birmingham City 3-0 Coventry City: Blues clinch crucial win to retain survival hopes
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Ivan Sunjic was emotional after scoring a key goal for Birmingham, his first strike for the club in two years
Birmingham City beat play-off chasing neighbours Coventry City to improve their Championship survival hopes.
Coventry defender Bobby Thomas's own goal unsettled the visitors, before Ivan Sunjic fired in his first goal in almost two years, then Blues top scorer Jay Stansfield netted from close range.
Birmingham are one point above the drop zone with three games to go.
Coventry are now eight points off the play-off places, but still have four games left - three of them at home.
Eight days away from their Wembley date with Manchester United, the FA Cup semi-finalists looked the more confident side in possession early on, when Milan van Ewijk fired a low shot narrowly wide.
Birmingham responded with neat build-up play that found winger Koji Miyoshi at the back post, but his strike could only find the side netting.
Moments later, Keshi Anderson crept his way into the Sky Blues penalty area and his drive ricocheted off defender Thomas and in.
Coventry continued to work hard in the hope that their quality would shine through. Haji Wright produced a delicate lob to beat John Ruddy, only for his shot to cannon off the crossbar.
But four minutes from the break, the Sky Blues failed to clear properly from a corner and Sunjic was waiting in space to strike the ball beautifully past goalkeeper Brad Collins - an emotional first goal since April 2022 after spending last season on loan at Hertha Berlin, external.
Birmingham started the second half where they left off as Stansfield collected the ball smartly inside the penalty area to fired through Collins' legs.
When the full-time whistle sounded at St Andrew's, Birmingham remained one point inside the relegation zone.
But Bristol City's late equaliser against Huddersfield moved Blues above the Terriers and up into 21st place.
Birmingham City interim manager Gary Rowett told BBC Radio WM:
"It had a little bit of everything. That was the nice bit about it.
"We spoke a few home truths after Wednesday, and in fairness, it was the players that mainly led that.
"What I tried to do is pick a team that I felt would go and put that out onto the pitch.
"We limited them to very few clear-cut chances. It allowed us to then go and show the quality we have got in the final third."
Coventry City manager Mark Robins told BBC CWR:
"I could have taken everyone off at half time. There was just nothing. It was a non-performance.
"We were second best to everything. When you are fighting for your lives at the bottom of the division, you know that this is going to be a tough game.
"When you have got a situation that we are in, where we are trying to get into the play-offs, you expect a response and we didn't have enough of a response.
"The energy, the way that we think, the way that we were making mistakes from a tactical point of view - where we start to move into spaces - is just foreign to me."