Coventry City 5-0 Rotherham United: Ellis Simms hat-trick leads way in Sky Blues win

Ellis Simms scored his second hat-trick in eight days to fire Coventry back into the play-off reckoning against relegation-haunted Rotherham.

Simms had managed two goals in his first 25 appearances for the Sky Blues but has scored eight in his past six, including another quickfire treble against Maidstone in the FA Cup last week.

Fabio Tavares added a late fifth goal to add emphasis to a win that keeps Coventry in sight of sixth-placed Hull, but leaves bottom club Rotherham 19 points adrift of safety with just 10 games to play.

Coventry badly needed a win after successive defeats dropped them to ninth, and the Millers were obliging opponents, despite having beaten the Sky Blues in the reverse fixture at the New York Stadium earlier in the season.

From the moment Viktor Johansson gifted Simms the opener with four minutes on the clock, the result – and visitors’ eighth straight defeat – were never in doubt.

The Swedish keeper has often been the hero for struggling Rotherham, but he dropped Jake Bidwell’s routine cross when under no pressure and Simms had the easy task of nodding into the empty net.

Rotherham almost replied as Christ Tiehi’s cross evaded Hakeem Odoffin’s head by inches, but on 23 minutes Coventry doubled their lead as defender Latibeaudiere headed in Bidwell’s corner.

Four minutes later Haji Wright tore a hole in the right side of the visitors’ defence and Simms slotted in a left-footed shot to make it three.

On 37 minutes Simms made it 12 for the season with a cracking shot from the edge of the box to give himself a classic hat-trick of header, left-foot and right-foot, after Wright had again been the provider by touching Bidwell’s cross into his path.

Rotherham managed to stem the tide in the second half as Coventry sub Matty Godden had a header blocked on the line – but in the dying moments Milan van Ewijk’s diagonal ball into the box deflected kindly for Tavares who neatly found the bottom corner to put Coventry eighth, within three points of Hull.

Coventry manager Mark Robins told BBC Radio CWR:

“We got an early goal which helped to settle everybody. The goalkeeper dropped it on Ellis’ head to give him a boost of confidence – he hadn’t scored a hat-trick until last week and now he has two.

“It was a brilliant hat-trick. The left-foot shot first time was a brilliant take, wrong-footing the keeper because he hit it so well, and the third one was brilliant play down the left-hand side, a good ball in, nice set from Haji [Wright] and to pick out the far corner was outstanding.

“That’s what he is capable of doing and that and the supporters singing his name should give him the world of confidence.

“Joel Latibeaudiere has got above the crossbar to head his goal, it was a great leap, and it put us in total control until the second half.”

Rotherham boss Leam Richardson told BBC Radio Sheffield:

“You can defend footballers as long as you can, and I always will, but that’s probably the worst 45 minutes that I’ve been involved in.

“You can accept mistakes from Vik [Johansson]. He’s had an outstanding season, with a couple of mistakes of late, but he’ll bounce back from it, but you can’t start games like this in the Championship.

“It was very soft, conceding three or four goals in the middle of our goal – avoidable, not acceptable, and we’re very aware of the situation we are in.

“If we’re not 100% we will find ourselves on the back of things like this. It’s the first time I’ve experienced it in my time at the club and I’ll do my best to make sure it never happens again.”