Coventry ended Blackburn’s unbeaten start to the Sky Bet Championship season with a 3-0 win at the CBS Arena.
Jake Bidwell opened the scoring with his first goal since April before Haji Wright doubled the lead after half-time.
Brandon Thomas-Asante then put the match to bed in the closing stages.
It was a much-needed win for the Sky Blues, who sat just outside the relegation zone after just one win in seven this season, including a 3-0 defeat to Leeds on Saturday.
Blackburn had not conceded for over six hours when Bidwell met Jack Rudoni’s corner and powered his header into the top corner after 11 minutes.
Rovers almost struck back immediately with a set-piece of their own as former Sky Blue Dom Hyam saw his header cleared off the line by Liam Kitching.
Mark Robins’ side had lost five of their previous six home games, as many as they had in the previous 37 outings at the CBS Arena, and piled the pressure on Blackburn as they went in search of a second
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Jake Bidwell scored an impressive header to open the scoring for Coventry against Blackburn.
Mason Ephron-Clark’s low effort was spilled by Aynsley Pears before the Rovers stopper was able to gather at the second attempt, while Thomas-Asante’s effort also had to be saved.
Ben Sheaf’s audacious effort had Pears scrambling but narrowly missed the far corner before Rudoni’s powerful low drive was palmed to safety.
It was a first half marred by an early injury to Coventry winger Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, who was stretchered off in the first 10 minutes with a serious-looking knee injury after a collision with Tyrhys Dolan.
Coventry wasted no time in grabbing their deserved second after the break.
Dolan’s backpass put Hyam under pressure, and the defender’s rushed pass across the box was latched onto by Wright.
The American made no mistake by cutting inside and thumped in his third of the season.
Kitching very nearly made it three when he lifted Wright’s cross over the bar.
Blackburn had scored 14 goals in their seven-game unbeaten run to start the season and showed their attacking prowess when Coventry failed to clear and Andreas Weimann’s effort at point blank range was kept out by Ben Wilson.
Hyam’s miserable return to the west midlands was almost compounded when he deflected Rudoni’s cross onto his own crossbar after a brilliant, free-flowing move involving all of the Sky Blues front line.
Thomas-Asante had not stopped running all evening and added the gloss to the scoreline in the final stages as he was fed by Ephron-Clark and squeezed his shot under Pears to extend Coventry’s unbeaten run over Blackburn to eight matches.
The managers
Coventry’s Mark Robins:
“It was a great win, much needed for confidence and belief, for the supporters, but this season we’ve played some really good football and not got what we deserved apart from Saturday when we deserved nothing.
“It was just a little bit of an anomaly. If you had played so well the previous week, you expect to try and build on that and it didn’t happen.
“That can happen with young players, a bit of lacking in self belief or whatever. But there was a difference in them yesterday. It was as if that game on Saturday hadn’t taken place and they came in and were absolutely in the right place.
“Tonight we started off really well. The line was led really well by Brandon and Haji on the left and Tatsuhiro (Sakamoto)’s injury meant Ephron (Mason-Clark) came on the right and worked really hard and picked up some positions in possession.
“I thought we were really good first half. They’ve been good so far and I thought we were good value for the win. We’ve had 18 shots and a lot of them have been really good chances.
“We needed to get a really good performance tonight and that’s what we saw but they are capable of that. Can we set that standard now, that can be a benchmark and can we keep going and try to improve on that?”
Blackburn’s John Eustace:
“A really disappointing night. I thought we were a little bit off the pace. We started quite well, had half a chance, but apart from that we weren’t at our normal levels which is disappointing.
“This is the Championship. It is relentless. We’ve come to a really difficult place, been on a good run, and we just couldn’t get our final pass off.
“I thought we were in some really good areas and the final ball just wasn’t good enough.
“We were just off the pace of getting tight enough to them as well so it was a bad night for us.
“We have to learn from it. We were up against a very good team who have spent a lot of money over the last couple of seasons.
“Their squad is a very good squad and we have to realise these are the levels we have to get to if we are going to compete with these teams week in and week out.
“We have to learn from every game we play and it is important that we react to it and have a really competitive game on Saturday.
“It is a 46-game season in the Championship, you have your ups and downs and we have to learn from tonight.”
