Coventry 3 – 2 West Brom

Championship leaders Coventry came from two goals behind to beat 10-man West Brom 3-2 in a thriller at the CBS Arena.

Aune Heggebo’s brace put the visitors two goals ahead but Josh Eccles halved the deficit before the break.

And after Jayson Molumby had been sent off four minutes into the second half, Ellis Simms and Victor Torp were on target to make it nine wins in 10 for Frank Lampard’s side.

Heggebo opened the scoring after nine minutes when Mikey Johnston dispossessed Jay Dasilva before picking out the Norwegian to sweep home.

The forward almost had a second five minutes later when he headed Alex Mowatt’s cross into the arms of Carl Rushworth.

The Sky Blues were without United States striker Haji Wright, who was left out of the squad after jetlag from international duty, and stand-in Simms could not connect cleanly with Matt Grimes’ cross.

Coventry came even closer to an equaliser when Simms knocked Milan van Ewijk’s cross down to Torp, who lashed his effort off the crossbar.

The West Midlands derby came to a head on the half-hour mark when Johnston stayed on the turf believing he had been fouled, before Tatsuhiro Sakamoto was fouled off the ball as Coventry played on.

Molumby then fouled Ephron Mason-Clark which led to a clash that saw both players booked.

Within seconds the Baggies had doubled their lead. In an almost carbon copy of the opener, Johnston found space down the right and squared for Heggebo to poke his effort in off the far post.

But the Sky Blues had scored 14 goals more than any other team coming into the weekend and halved the deficit before half-time, as Eccles headed Sakamoto’s cross into the far corner.

The Baggies replaced the lively Johnston with Samuel Iling-Junior at half-time but they soon had to alter their plans when they were reduced to 10 men.

Molumby pulled back Torp to prevent a counter attack and was shown a second yellow card.

The equaliser came seven minutes later through Simms, who netted his first goal since the start of October.

Midfield maestro Grimes’ lofted ball into the area was headed across goal by Bobby Thomas and Simms nodded beyond Josh Griffiths.

Simms was involved again as Coventry completed the turnaround five minutes later.

The former Everton man headed Grimes’ corner perfectly into the path of Torp, who drilled home to put the Sky Blues ahead.

It was the second home game in succession Lampard’s men had come from behind to win after coming from 1-0 down to beat Sheffield United 3-1 before the international break.

Torp went close to extending the lead when his free-kick was blocked, while Mason-Clark forced an acrobatic save out of Griffiths to keep the Baggies deficit down to one.

Coventry comfortably saw the game out and there was also a welcome return for midfielder Jack Rudoni, who had been sidelined for two months through injury.

The managers

Coventry’s Frank Lampard:

“Outstanding. I thought we played well all of the game but just made a couple of mistakes that are not normally our thing this season.

“But the reaction to keep playing in the first half, even with the feeling of 2-0, sometimes can take the wind out of yourselves. I thought our players were very positive with that.

“The goal before half-time, which we deserved, helped because that gave the players belief. I spoke a lot about that at half-time and then my feeling was that we would go out and get something out of this game.

“I’m delighted with the way they’ve completed that game.

“I think the red card helped in terms of taking away a counter attack threat, which was their threat mainly in the first half, but it was a red card and that’s just football.

“It was a clear one, so then you’ve got to deal with that and deal with people expecting you to break them down. But I thought we did that really well.

“We had a 20-minute spell where we obviously scored the two goals. But I think even with 11 men on I would have fancied us in the second half because of the way we were approaching the game.”

West Brom’s Ryan Mason:

“Obviously very frustrated. With the way the game panned out as well. Something we have to accept, learn from, and try and improve for sure.

“We probably created the better chances (before the red card), scored two really good goals. Obviously they’re a good team, they were going to have moments and momentum and periods in the game where they got in the final third and put a lot of crosses in.

“The two goals we scored were really good and we knew that we could hurt them and we showed that today, but to go down to 10 men for such a long period of time in this stadium and the moment they’re in, it was always going to be difficult to see the game out.”