COVENTRY, OCT 13 (IANS): Coventry City tug themselves out of the Premier League’s relegation zone by thrashing Newcastle United 4-1 for their first home win of the season.
Having earned their first points of the campaign via a 1-0 victory at Nottingham Forest before the international break, Coventry City went ahead through Jack Rudoni’s sixth-minute penalty.
Rudoni opened the scoring from the penalty spot after just six minutes before Sidiki Cherif, who was making his first Premier League start, got off the mark for the Sky Blues early in the second half. Sven Botman pulled one back for the Magpies, but City regrouped and added further goals through substitutes Ellis Simms and Stephen Mfuni.
Newcastle were masters of their own downfall early on, as goalkeeper Lukas Hornicek failed to gather a routine ball before upending Cherif inside the penalty area, with Rudoni making no mistake from 12 yards, Premier League reports. Harvey Barnes’ shot was held by Carl Rushworth as Newcastle started to threaten, but after Matias Fernandez-Pardo bizarrely dummied Jacob Murphy’s cross with no team-mate behind him, Hornicek had to thwart Cherif on the counter-attack. Bobby Thomas then made two huge clearances to preserve Coventry’s lead, the second of them denying Fernandez-Pardo, who had rounded goalkeeper Rushworth. But after exerting all that pressure, Newcastle went 2-0 down early in the second half as a half-cleared throw-in made its way to Cherif, who took a touch before shooting on the swivel, with his strike fizzing through a crowd of bodies and in.
Cherif also passed up a great chance to make it 3-0, slicing wide after Botman miscued his clearance, but the Newcastle centre-back later dragged his team back in to the contest with a thunderous strike from the edge of the area.
Coventry had to survive a couple of nervy moments at the back, but Newcastle’s hopes of a comeback were dashed when Joelinton lost possession cheaply and Simms – who had been on the pitch for less than four minutes – scored with his first touch as his shot deflected in off Malick Thiaw in the 81st minute.
And the ecstatic home fans had another goal to celebrate five minutes later, with Mfuni’s left-footed piledriver bouncing in off the far post.
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