Coventry City 3-0 Preston North End as it happened: Sky Blues take step closer to the Premier League

Preston North End were beaten 3-0 by Coventry City on Wednesday night.

The Lilywhites were boosted by the return of number one Daniel Iversen, who had missed two months of action with a groin injury. Manager Paul Heckingbottom made a total of five changes to his starting lineup, after injury blows to Lewis Gibson and Callum Lang in last Friday’s loss to Oxford United.

Iversen was swiftly called into action, as the league leaders looked to make a fast start to proceedings on their own patch. January signing Frank Onyeka drove a vicious, left-footed volley on target from the edge of the box but a strong hand from PNE’s goalkeeper tipped it over the crossbar.

At the other end, North End tested Carl Rushworth in the Coventry goal not long after. Alfie Devine’s flat, free-kick delivery from the left was glanced towards the top corner by captain Ben Whiteman but Rushworth reacted sharply and turned the ball behind for a corner.

With 17 minutes on the clock, Frank Lampard’s men did hit the front. The ball dropped kindly for Tatsuhiro Sakamoto to strike from range. Having been afforded the time and space to pull the trigger, his effort took a wicked deflection off Whiteman and flew into the bottom left corner - having originally been heading wide of the opposite.

Having adopted an approach designed to frustrate the hosts and get the ball forward quickly - to a front two of Milutin Osmajic and Daniel Jebbison - the onus was on the Lilywhites to force the issue but also prevent further damage. Just after the half-hour mark, though, their night became even tougher.

Set-pieces have been a frailty of PNE’s in recent weeks and Coventry had looked dangerous from previous corner kicks. Liam Kitching won his header at the back post and Ellis Simms then forced an excellent save from Iversen, but Brandon Thomas-Asante was there to slot home from a couple of yards out.

Before the restart, Thomas-Asante went close to making it three with a powerful drive from distance, which whistled just wide of the far corner. Daniel Jebbison and the injured Ali McCann were replaced at the interval by Lewis Dobbin and Jordan Thompson, with Preston needing to score the next goal in the match.

Six minutes into the second half, the result was put beyond all doubt when Pol Valentin was penalised for bringing down Ephron Mason-Clark - replays showed the the Spaniard had been harshly punished. Up stepped Coventry skipper Matt Grimes, who sent Iversen the wrong way and picked out the bottom right corner.

North End kept huffing and puffing and prevented the score line getting uglier. On his second appearance since signing on deadline day, Andrew Moran saw strong appeals for a spot-kick waved away by referee Lewis Smith. Osmajic saw a near-post header held by Rushworth, before Dobbin stabbed just wide from Thierry Small’s low cross.

PNE starting XI: Iversen; Offiah, Storey, Hughes, Valentin (Potts 65’), Whiteman (c), McCann (Thompson 46’), Small (Vukcevic 74’), Devine (Moran 65’), Osmajic, Jebbison (Dobbin 46’). PNE subs: Cornell; Lindsay, Nelson, Smith.