COVENTRY CITY 1-0 BURNLEY BY KEV MONKS
Date 20/11/10 At The Ricoh Arena
Team
Westwood, Keogh Wood, Cameron, McPake, Baker (Gunnarsson 53), Doyle, Carsley, McSheffrey (Clarke 80), Platt, King (Jutkiewicz 74) SNU Ireland, Eastwood, 0'Donovan, Cranie
Burnley
Grant, Alexander, Duff, Carlisle, Cork (Wallace 68), Elliott, Mears, Rodriquez, Easton, Eagles, Iwelumo (Thompson 68) SNU Jensen, Marney, Edgar, Cort, Bikey
HT CCFC 0-0 BFC FT CCFC 1-0 BFC ATT 14,32
GOAL Michael Doyle (56)
REFEREE D.Webb BOOKED McSheffrey, Duff, McPake
MAN OF THE MATCH James McPake took the votes with nominations for Keogh, Platt, Doyle, Wood and Gunnarsson
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Coventry City are back to winning ways after a hard fought 1-0 home victory against Burnley this afternoon.
Having lost the last three matches, there was a big need for City to get back to winning ways today as we made our way into the Ricoh Arena on a horrible, foggy and cold afternoon.
The City support, which looked to be around the 12,000 mark by the time the teams were announced, saw visitors from California, Northern Ireland and Malaysia adding to our ranks and we saw manager Aidy Boothroyd name a side which saw the welcome return of Clive Platt up front whilst Martin Cranie was benched with Nathan Cameron coming in at centre half and Richard Wood moving to left back.
City, in front of the satellite tv cameras, took on a Burnley side that was without the injured Danny Fox who had said in midweek that he would like one day to play again for the Sky Blues, but included Coventry born Graham Alexander and former City loanee Jack Cork, who had been on England U21 duty in midweek.
The match got underway with a few 'Sky Blue Army' chants from the back of the CT Stand which the visitors attacked in the first half and saw City starting the better with a Keogh shot blocked and a good run by the hard working Lee Carsley which ended with the skipper hitting a shot that visiting keeper Grant got down to his left to push away for a 5th minute corner.
Brian Laws' team, whose supporters has been fighting amongst themselves pre-match, when one of their 1551 strong support was spotted wearing a Chelsea hat, went straight up the other end and Keiren Westwood, who had got over his midweek bout of flu, was able to block from Jay Rodriquez.
Burnley had Chris Iwelumo up front and again, it was not hard to see why the Scot, whose international miss is a YouTube sensation, attracts such derision as he was easily beaten to a through ball by Westwood.
His being up front also showed why The Clarets had arrived at the Ricoh Arena without an away league victory to their name this season. Their midfield looked good with Jack Cork plugging away and possessed a good ability to quickly move the ball around. However, up front, Burnley today were clearly struggling.
City weren't much better early on. Platt won his headers and although Marlon King showed the odd nice touch, there was no end product from the strikers. Midfield-wise, the likes of Carsley and Doyle battled well but McSheffrey and Baker did not enjoy the best of games.
There was a huge cheer when City finally got their first decision from the referee in the 25th minute.
Like, Leeds had done a fortnight ago, the visiting players were straight at the referee, who said that his favourite game he had refereed involved Coventry Sphinx FC, surrounding him, but the match official stood his ground and had a pretty good game.
That free kick for a foul on McSheffrey, who took the kick, was superbly tipped over by Lee Grant in the Burnley goal and the keeper then did well to palm over a Richard Wood header.
This was as good as it got in the first half for City. The home support grew more frustrated as the likes of Eagles were allowed to attack too easily and on the half-time whistle, the Sky Blues were booed off.
There was a delay to the second half when the bald headed assistant was not happy about a peg holding the netting at the back of the CT Stand goal. He stood there looking around before Burnley's Clarke Carlisle sensibly took matters into his own hands and went round the back of the goal and pushed the peg in properly, something the official could have done, instead of wasting time on a freezing cold afternoon and finally the second half got underway.
Six minutes into the second half, there was an almighty boo from the Tesco Stand when with no options, the ball got played back to Keiren Westwood.
This left some of the City players looking at the stand wondering as to what was going on and on the other side of the ground, the City management decided to send on Aron Gunnarsson who had been to Israel this week with the Icelandic national team in place of Carl Baker.
Iwelumo fired well wide to more hoots of derision and even the odd donkey noise before City went up the other end in the 56th minute and won a corner.
Gary McShefffey hit the flag kick right into the mixer and it was desperately headed away. The ball came via Gunnarsson to MICHAEL DOYLE, who was about 25 yards out when he drilled a lowish shot that beat Grant and flew into the net.
Doyle raced into the corner of the CT and Main Stand to celebrate a rare goal in Sky Blue colours as the scoreboard, which was displaying an out of date Burnley badge, ticked over to 1-0.
Cork set up Canley lad Graham Alexander for a chance before the Burnley fans screamed for a 63rd minute handball but only got a corner.
In the 68th minute, the visiting supporters let their manager know what they thought of his decision to take off Jack Cork, who got some good applause from the City supporters, by chanting "You Don't Know What You're Doing" at Laws who also replaced Iwelumo.
In the 74th minute, Marlon King, whose second half contribution had been slight if any at all, was replaced by Lukas Jutkiewicz.
Just before Boothroyd made his third change of the afternoon, the solid James McPake made a good stop after Wade Elliott had rounded Westwood.
That was it from Burnley and in the dying seconds of the four minutes of added time, Lukas Jutkiewicz got through to a Doyle ball and rounded Grant. He aimed for the far post but the ball went agonisingly wide leaving City to be content with a 1-0 workmanlike victory.