Crawley Town 1-2 Coventry City
City: Burge, Willis (Davies 81), Grimmer, McDonald, Haynes, Bayliss (Reid 57), Doyle, Kelly, Ponticelli, Clarke-Harris.(Biamou 66), McNulty. Subs: O'Brien, Stokes, Shipley.
Crawley Town: Morris, Young, Connolly, Payne, Tabjakhsh, (Doherty 60), Yorwerth, Bulman, Verheydt (Camara 59), Boldewijn, Smith, Ahearne-Grant. Subs: Mersin, Roberts, McNerney, Randall, Sanoh.
Att 3,294
Goals Jordan Ponticelli 4 & 77, Lewis Young 12
Jordan Ponticelli scored twice to give Coventry City a valuable three points in a 2-1 win at Crawley Town.
Five games left, fifteen points to play for and five teams in red and white to take on, that was the challenge for Coventry City as they travelled to Crawley Town, looking to finish in the play-offs and as high up as possible.
Mark Robins brought in Jordan Ponticelli and went three up front for a game on a gloriously sunny afternoon.
With the noisy 1,197 City support looking like they were making up at least 40% of the crowd, the game kicked off with City attacking the far end and they got off to a great start when the ball came across and Jordan Ponticelli tucked it past the keeper.
Crawley liked to pass it round and forced Burge into two not particularly difficult saves before they attacked down the left and the ball came over to Lewis Young on the right of the area and he scored with a low finish into the bottom corner of the net in the 12th minute.
City were allowing Crawley too much of the ball which was whizzing across the area and having to be hoofed away.
Clarke-Harris had a shot in the 21st minute palmed away for a corner but that failed to produce anything of note and Robins sent his subs to warm up, as Burge made a catch from an unchallenged cross.
City did the same at the other end before a 36th minute free kick led to a corrner that ended up in the arms of Morris in the Crawley goal.
Kelly gave Morris the ball back with a very poor effort. That allowed the home side to break and Ponticelli had to clear away.
Into the second half and Crawley should have taken the lead in the 54th minute when Jimmy Smith missed.
Kyel Reid came on in the 57th minute for Tom Bayliss as the City support started to get disgruntled with the standard of City's passing and lack of desire.
The groans were justified as some of the passing was awful in what was a poor game.
Max Biamou came on in the 66th minute replacing Clarke-Harris whilst the other substitute Kyel Reid finally got a touch of the ball after 13 minutes.
McNulty won a 71st minute corner which again was over-hit and sent an over-head kick wide of Morris' left hand post with 16 minutes to go.
A corner was followed by a throw. Doyle sent the ball over and Morris blocked Grimmer's shot.
The spell of pressure paid off and at the far post was Jordan Ponticelli to fire low into the net. One fan got on the pitch as the City support went berserk, diving all over the terrace.
Tom Davies came on for the last nine minutes for Jordan Willis who had done well considering his lack of match action.
Jimmy Smith missed another good chance to level the scores, Burge saved and Ponticelli fired wide but not as wide as Biamou as the clock ticked down and City took the win.