Coventry City substitute Jack Rudoni scored twice in a thrilling win against Derby County to move Frank Lampard’s side to within eight points of ending their 25-year Premier League exile.<\/p>\n
Rudoni netted the winner in a see-saw contest 10 minutes from time to extend the Sky Blues’ Championship lead to 11 points after Ben Brereton Diaz had twice pegged them back.<\/p>\n
Frank Onyeka opened the scoring with his first Coventry goal before Rudoni restored their lead after Brereton Diaz headed in the first equaliser.<\/p>\n
Brereton Diaz must have thought he had snatched a point for the promotion-chasing Rams when he made it 2-2 from the penalty spot before Rudoni settled it with his fifth goal in four games.<\/p>\n
The victory makes it eight wins from nine for Coventry and they could secure promotion back to the top flight within the next fortnight.<\/p>\n
The Rams, who have lost Rhian Brewster for the rest of the season following knee surgery, were bright, only for Coventry to open the scoring with a goal which was all about Onyeka. <\/p>\n
The Nigerian midfielder, who joined on loan from Brentford in February, won possession before playing a one-two with Romain Esse on the right and curling his right-foot shot into the top corner.<\/p>\n
Derby refused to buckle and deservedly equalised before half-time. <\/p>\n
Centre-back Matt Clarke produced some great wing play, whipping over a fine cross from the left to the back post, which sailed over Sky Blues goalkeeper Carl Rushworth, for Brereton Diaz to head home.<\/p>\n
The Rams were denied a second in first-half added time when Rushworth made a fine save from Jaydon Banel with his trailing right leg.<\/p>\n
Coventry improved and Richard O’Donnell made a vital save from Josh Eccles after he had been played in by Joe Ward’s poor backpass.<\/p>\n
Lampard sent on Rudoni as part of a triple substitution and the midfielder delivered five minutes later when he coolly switched the ball on to his left foot to finish.<\/p>\n
Derby levelled once again when referee Tom Nield harshly ruled Rushworth brought down Brereton Diaz and the forward, who has just returned from Auckland with Chile, converted the spot-kick for his seventh goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Coventry showed the character of champions elect, and Milan van Ewijk crossed for the unmarked Rudoni to steer home his seventh goal of the season at the near post.<\/p>\n
The Sky Blues are now 12 points clear of third-placed Middlesbrough and 14 points above fourth-placed Ipswich, although the Tractor Boys have two games in hand.<\/p>\n
Derby are four points behind the play-off places with six matches to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coventry City substitute Jack Rudoni scored twice in a thrilling win against Derby County to move Frank Lampard’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-562921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}