Coventry City 0-3 Preston North End: Resurgent Preston leapfrog hosts with big win

Resurgent Preston leapfrogged Coventry to move one place outside the Championship play-offs with a big win at the CBS Arena.

The win stretched Preston’s unbeaten run to six matches as they try to get back in the promotion running after a dire run ruined their excellent start to the season, when they were top after eight games.

Coventry would have claimed a top-six spot with victory but were pressured out of their rhythm by the away side, and suffered only their second home defeat of the season.

Ryan Lowe’s team were off to a flying start with Riis scoring his fourth goal in as many games with just one minute on the clock. He managed to force the ball over the line from a looping Alan Browne cross after the Preston skipper had taken the ball from a short corner.

The Denmark Under-21s striker, whose return from a 12-month injury absence has helped to give Preston fresh impetus, worried the Coventry defence throughout the first half.

The visitors, whose fierce press knocked Coventry out of their rhythm, were two up in the 20th minute.

The goal was a personal nightmare for Jay Dasilva, who unwisely performed a drag-back turn to try to dribble out of his own six-yard box after Thomas had blocked a shot from Riis. The Dane pounced on Dasilva and prodded the ball to top scorer Keane who tucked away his 12th of the season.

Coventry’s woes deepened before the half hour when Tatsuhiro Sakamoto was stretchered off with what manager Mark Robins later said may be a “really bad injury”, appearing to hurt his back in an awkward fall with Kasey Palmer replacing the Japan midfielder.

Josh Eccles blazed over the bar as Coventry tried to fight their way back into the game, but they were hit by a counter-attack in the 38th minute. Whiteman’s sweeping pass sent Riis racing down the left, and as Mads Frokjaer-Jensen stretched to reach the cross, Thomas could only turn the ball past his own keeper Ben Wilson.

After going into the game on a run of just one defeat in 14 games, Coventry responded and Preston keeper Freddie Woodman made a fine save to keep out Callum O’Hare’s shot, with defender Andrew Hughes following up to clear as the ball threatened to trickle over the line.

Coventry tried to force the pace in the second half but Preston defended resolutely to make sure of their biggest win since they hammered neighbours Blackburn at Ewood Park in December 2022.

Milan van Ewijk was twice denied by Woodman, whose clean sheet meant Coventry had failed to score for the first time in 20 matches, and fell to their heaviest defeat of the season.

Coventry manager Mark Robins told BBC Radio CWR:

“That was as bad as it’s been for probably a good few years – it was worse than the Stoke game last year when we lost 4-0.

“Sometimes the game gets away from you early on, and today was that. We conceded after a minute, a really poor goal – you have got to defend that better. They set their stall out from the first minute and we didn’t cope with it.

“We’ve been old-manned. They’ve got an experienced line-up, they ran and fought harder than us, and did the dirty side of the game better than anyone who has been here, so they deserved to win, no doubt about it.

“You can talk about the clean sheet in the second half, but the game was done. You can talk about trying to salvage pride, but there was no pride in that, it didn’t even look like a performance, it was a group of individuals who looked scared stiff and let them get on top of us physically and mentally.”

Preston manager Ryan Lowe told BBC Radio Lancashire:

“It was a top performance. On the front foot from minute one, with a set-piece goal that we worked on.

“I couldn’t have asked for any more than 3-0 in the first half, and we possibly could have had another one. They had a go, to be fair, but we were just better all round.

“The lads were fantastic. In the second half they were changing shape and were obviously going to come at us with good players coming on, but we kept the ball, nice and simple, tired them out a little bit.

“I’m over the moon for the boys, but it’s just another win that takes us closer to the points tally we set yesterday.”