Coventry continued their fine form with a 2-1 victory over Scunthorpe despite being reduced to 10 men.
Coventry prevail despite having Barnett sent off
Coventry continued their fine form with a 2-1 victory over Scunthorpe despite being reduced to 10 men.
The Sky Blues were rewarded for their dominance when Jon Stead broke the deadlock in the 55th minute but Leon Barnett was then sent off for a second bookable offence.
Scunthorpe were unable to take advantage as Sammy Clingan grabbed a second for Coventry, although Grant McCann's late effort set up an exciting finale.
The game started slowly with neither side venturing too far into their opponents' half.
Chances
Clinton Morrison engineered a chance for the Sky Blues when he acrobatically clipped the ball over the bar with Scunthorpe goalkeeper Joe Murphy looking on gratefully.
The hosts were seeing more of the ball and would have been disappointed not to have taken the lead through Clingan when Stead teed him up in the box, but the former Norwich man could only fire over the bar.
Aron Gunnarsson then had two chances within the space of a minute for the hosts.
Firstly he forced Murphy into a spectacular save which led to a Coventry corner. The corner was cleared but the Sky Blues regrouped and Gunnarsson again picked the ball up before dragging his shot wide.
The Iron had their first chance of any note with a minute of the first half remaining when Cliff Byrne chipped the ball into the box and Gary Hooper flicked the ball beyond the far post with his head.
The hosts finally broke the deadlock 10 minutes into the second half.
Stead picked the ball up on the edge of the area and after taking a touch to get it out of his feet he buried the ball into the bottom corner past the outstretched hand of Murphy.
Response
The visitors had the chance to respond immediately when Barnett hauled Hooper down in the box and was shown a second yellow card.
Hooper stepped up to take the penalty himself and despite hitting the target could only watch on as Westwood guessed right and saved the spot-kick.
Scunthorpe were left to rue the miss nine minutes later when Byrne brought down Gunnarsson on the edge of the area and Clingan stepped up to curl the ball round the wall and into the top corner.
McCann scored a late consolation when he got a toe to the ball in the midst of a goalmouth scramble and poked the ball past Westwood.
The visitors pushed forward in search of an equaliser and would have been disappointed not to have taken a point when Garry Thompson's deflected effort was ruled out for offside in the closing stages.
