Huddersfield Town 1-3 Coventry City – Ellis Simms continues fine form to help Sky Blues beat Terriers

Ellis Simms’ first-half double helped Coventry beat Huddersfield to stay firmly in the hunt for the Championship play-offs.

Rhys Healey pulled a goal back for Huddersfield with 11 minutes remaining but Haji Wright made the points safe for the visitors in stoppage time.

Victory took the Sky Blues up to seventh but still four points outside the play-offs, while Huddersfield stay a point from safety in 22nd.

Since the turn of the year, Simms is the most prolific goalscorer in the top four divisions with 13 goals in 18 games in all competitions and his quick double put Coventry in control in a dominant first half.

First, he picked up the ball on the left edge of the penalty area, cut away from the dead-ball line on to his right boot and sent a searing strike into the top right corner.

And shortly after, a neat move saw Kasey Palmer drive from midfield and slide Milan van Ewijk into the right side of the area before his cut-back was turned home by a sliding Simms.

It then took a smart save from Terriers goalkeeper Lee Nicholls to deny him an eight-minute hat-trick.

Huddersfield threatened to get back into the game as David Kasumu clipped the outside of the left post before half-time and Jack Rudoni crashed a shot against the bar after the break.

They did pull a goal back as Coventry were caught trying to play out of their own area and Healey finished with his right boot as City threatened to let the game slip.

Pat Jones twice stung the hands of Sky Blues goalkeeper Brad Collins but Wright ensured there was no late drama.

He received a pass on the top of the area, shifted on to his left boot to create a yard of space and lashed a low strike past Nicholls.

Huddersfield boss Andre Breitenreiter told BBC Radio Leeds:

“We had a good start and the first big chance from Josh Koroma on a one-on-one situation and we should’ve taken the lead then.

“When you are the bottom of the table you need to play with confidence and we lost too many individual duels in the first half – we spoke about this at half-time because you cannot win when you lose too many duels.

“Set-pieces were poor today but we created the chances to score. You need a bit of luck to get a draw and we tried everything to get the draw but they got a third – but that’s football.”

Coventry City manager Mark Robins told BBC CWR:

“I thought we had a really good first half, we got ahead and then had some other chances to score.

“We gave them a leg up into the game, which we spoke about at half-time with players coming back after the international break.

“It wasn’t a scintillating performances but this stage of the season you find a way to win games and we did that.”