Coventry City 1-0 AFC Bournemouth
City: Murphy, Clarke, Cameron, Wood, Moussa, Baker, Fleck, Barton (Ball 46),McGoldrick (Elliott 89), Reckford, Bailey. Subs Dunn, Hussey, Jennings, Christie, Brown.
Bournemouth: James, Francis, Addison, Elphick, Daniels, Hughes, Carmichael (Partington 50), MacDonald (Tubbs 75), Grabban, Pugh, Barnard (Fletcher 80). Substitutes: Jalal, Cook, Zubar, O’Kane.
HT CCFC 0-0 AFCB FT CCFC 1-0 AFCB ATT 10,458
Referee James Adcock Goals David McGoldrick 62
Man Of The Match McGoldrick took the votes with nominations for Carl Baker.
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Coventry City won their first home league match since March with a 1-0 win over AFC Bournemouth.
Mark Robins made changes, dropping Gary McSheffrey and starting with John Fleck, Jordan Clarke and Nathan Cameron against a Bournemouth side, taken by Dennis Rofe and containing David James in goal.
On a pitch that was heavily watered before kick off despite nine hours of rain in Coventry on Friday night\Saturday morning, City attack what used to be the CT Stand before their sponsorship ran out for the first half.
Straight from the kick off, the much travelled and as usual much abused James was flapping following a McGoldrick shot\cross in the opening seconds.
The Cherries were allowed too much of the ball early on against a City team playing 4-5-1 at home.
In the eighth minute, City won their first corner of the game, which was cleared and a minute later, McGoldrick had a goal ruled out for offside after rounding James with ease.
James flapped at another McGoldrick shot ten minutes later, before he grabbed the ball in the 20th minute following a good move involving Fleck.
Bournemouth, who went into the game only a point ahead of the Sky Blues, won their first corner in the 21st minute. That led to another but this time Joe Murphy showed how it was done with a firm catch.
Yet again, some of the City support were starting to start to show their frustrations and it was not hard to see why.
Far too often, City could not retain possession and when they did get the ball, too often they lacked anything creative other than the Captain Carl Baker head down and run tactic.
Adam Barton, who again was accused by some of the support of not stepping up to the plate, did have one effort in the 36th minute just over but yet again, this was turgid stuff from the Sky Blues and a child asleep in the East Stand summed it up perfectly.
Now fair play to Mark Robins who threw on Callum Ball for the start of the second half in a bid to freshen things up. Robins may be lacking in his taste of music if he thinks that Chelsea Dagger is a song that City should come out to, but he has started to make changes around the club which hopefully will have some long term benefit and has shown with his decision to put Kevin Malaga on the transfer list that he is not frightened of taking action.
Playing 4-4-2, City looked immediately better and Moussa got in a shot which again James failed to deal with before a Reckord cross in the 48th minute just missed two incoming players, one of whom was McGoldrick who then got in a shot which James pushed away for a corner.
Moussa headed on to the bar from the flag kick.
Murphy pushed one over at the other end for a corner whilst at the other end, James continued with his time wasting tactics that had gone unpunished in the first half.
Lee Barnard should have done better when through just on the hour mark and two minutes later, the Cherries were made to pay when David McGoldrick nipped in to stick the ball past James and finally break the deadlock.
With the crowd now back to life and the youngster who had slept through most of the match now awake, both sides had chances but nothing to worry either keeper.
Bournemouth, backed by 740 fans, used all their substitutes before an error by Reckord to let in Tubbs, who was only stopped by a flag from the assistant on the East Stand side from levelling the match.
David McGoldrick left to a good ovation he deserved when he was replaced by Stephen Elliott with a minute to go and pretty, it certainly was not, but what it was City's first home League victory since March.