Ephron cracker leaves table-toppers Stoked

COVENTRY City stretched their lead at the top of the Championship to five points from second-placed Middlesbrough, who kept on their automatic promotion coat tails on a day when Adi Viveash was in caretaker charge of a victory at the Riverside.

- By ANDY TURNER Sky Blues Reporter

Milan van Ewijk tussles with Sorba Thomas

But, encouragingly for Frank Lampard's Sky Blues, their slender 1-0 win over former boss Mark Robins gave them a seven-point cushion on third-placed Stoke, 12 months and a day after the legendary manager was sacked from his post at the CBS Arena.

A fairly tight game was decided four minutes from the end of normal time by a spectacular hooked volley from Ephron Mason-Clark to extend City's impressive sequence of results to eight wins from their last nine league matches going into the third international break of the campaign.

Here we take a look at some of the big talking points...

Although both sides have been fairly free-scoring in recent weeks, with Coventry netting 24 in their previous eight games and the Potters bagging nine in their last three, this was a day when the defenders came to the fore.

Keeping their seventh clean sheet from 15 games, the Sky Blues' back four caught the eye with some outstanding defending, none more so than from the fullbacks who were up against testing opponents.