10-man leaders shrug off illness crisis to earn point
Blackburn beat Millwall to ease relegation worries
Coventry shrugged off an illness crisis and a half with 10 men as the Championship leaders secured a 1-1 draw at Southampton. Frank Lampard – having been abused throughout the match by home supporters – gestured multiple times at the Southampton fans after the match to spark a melee on the pitch.
Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and the first-choice centre-backs, Bobby Thomas and Liam Kitching, missed the game with a flu bug and Jay Dasilva was sent off 85 seconds into the second half. Ephron Mason-Clark had given Coventry a first-half lead but they could not hold out as Nathan Wood levelled after the break.
Coventry thought they should have been awarded a penalty when Haji Wright went down under a Taylor Harwood-Bellis challenge, but the last 15 minutes of the first half saw the visitors assert their dominance, first when Gavin Bazunu was forced into a stunning save to deny Jack Rudoni, and then by taking the lead. Victor Torp dinked a ball into the middle where Mason-Clark managed to shrug off his marker to head home for the second game in a row. It was the winger’s fifth goal of the season.
