Unbeaten Coventry march on with win over Birmingham

Brandon Thomas-Asante swept the ball home to give Coventry City the lead against Birmingham City

Coventry City maintained their unbeaten start to their Championship campaign with a comfortable win over 10-man Birmingham City.

Brandon Thomas-Asante's goal - his third of the season - put the Sky Blues ahead in the first half, before Chris Davies' side had Jack Robinson sent off for a second bookable offence.

An own goal from Bright Osayi-Samuel and a goal by Victor Torp ensured Frank Lampard's dominant team ended their run of three straight draws, as they moved back into second place in the table ahead of the later kick-offs.

Birmingham, who have now lost three of their past four matches, failed to muster a shot on target as their 19-year wait for a West Midlands derby win at Coventry continued.

Lampard's team went into the game on the back of their best start to a season in the top two divisions for 32 years, but their four draws meant they were still not into the play-off positions.

The opening exchanges were as fierce as you would expect in a derby, and against a Brum side seeking their first victory at Coventry since Steve Bruce was the manager in 2006.

With chances scarce, Coventry vitally struck the first blow as a long throw from the excellent Milan van Ewujk was cleared to the edge of the area and Liam Kitching fired a low shot through a crowd of players.

Keeper Ryan Allsop did well to parry, but the ball fell straight to the alert Thomas-Asantem who thrashed it over the diving keeper.

Haji Wright was causing the visiting defence problems and, when he sought to slip clear of Robinson, the centre-back clumsily fouled him to earn a second yellow card just eight minutes after his first for a foul on Josh Eccles.

His dismissal five minutes before half-time made a tough task virtually impossible for a shot-shy Birmingham, who had seen striker Marvin Ducksch pull out of the starting line-up during the warm-up with an injury, with last week's late goalscoring hero Lyndon Dykes making his first start since February as a replacement.

Coventry emphasised their superiority shortly into the second half when Tastushiro Sakamoto seemed to have overhit his cross to the far post.

Eccles did brilliantly to reach it and head back across goal, where Osayi-Samuel could not react in time to stop the ball bouncing off him and going marginally over the line before Allsop could claw it away.

Coventry went on the hunt for more, as Birmingham's day got worse with striker Jay Stansfield going off after being treated for an injury.

Torp and Wright both went for the same ball after a Birmingham defensive mix-up, got in each other's way and the latter sliced his shot wide with the goal at his mercy.

Torp made up for that when he raced forward in support of substitute Ellis Simms, who did well to control Carl Rushworth's long clearance and force Allsop into a save, with the ball squirming free for Torp to slide in his fifth goal of the season.

'Harsh to lose a player' - reaction

Coventry manager Frank Lampard told BBC Radio CWR:

"Outstanding atmosphere for a derby game - the fans were great and the players were brilliant, with everybody focused, ready to compete and ready to play.

"At 11 v 11 we got our goal and I thought they were really tough opposition after a good start to the season, but you could see we were at it, and the fans reacted to that.

"When they went to 10 men it's not easy to deal with, but we dealt with it brilliantly. We played high up in their half and kept doing the right things.

"We got our two goals in the second half and we got a clean sheet, and the focus of the team was amazing."

On Jack Rudoni absence: "He's got a calf injury so will be out for some weeks. We can't put a date on it at this point but it's disappointing.

"The injury came from the Leicester game. He's had a bad shoulder all week and hasn't really trained, so we only found out at the back end of the week. It's a big loss for us."

Birmingham manager Chris Davies told BBC Radio WM:

"It was a tough afternoon. We had a change in the warm-up with an injury, which isn't ideal, it limits you a little bit.

"We started the game OK, we were well in the game with nothing between the teams, but the red card has completely changed the game.

"It's harsh to lose a player for those two challenges and what's made it more frustrating for me, and I made the point just now [to the referee] that their players were kicking the ball away from all our quick free-kicks, and if we're going to lose a game based on losing a player to two yellow cards what we have to see is rules being adhered to by officials.

"All I want is consistency across the board to give us a chance."