PRIOR to the match there were many fitting tributes to Cyrille Regis who played more than 200 games for the Sky Blues and who was one of their favourite sons. In February 1992 – during Glen Hoddle’s first season as Town manager – he made his only ever appearance against Swindon, when he played for Aston Villa in an FA Cup Fifth Round match at the County Ground in front of 16,000 people, writes Peter Mitchell.

What a difference a week has made for rivals Forest Green Rovers. John Light must have been salivating with pleasure during their 5-2 win on Saturday and probably forgot all about any prawn sandwiches in the press box!

Regular Town fans will be all too familiar with the stop-start form that has characterised Swindon’s displays this season. Once again here was a game that, given their performance, Town should have got at least a point from, and it could be a telling result when we reflect at the end of the season.

Against Coventry City, the Town line up showed one change from the win over Forest Green Rovers, with Kellan Gordon replacing Kyle Knowle at right wing back.

After a promising start Swindon were shaken in the 17th minute when a 20-yard blockbuster from Maxime Biamou put the home side in front. Worse was to come only 5 minutes later when an innocuous looking tackle from Matt Preston was penalised, enabling Marc McNulty to convert from the spot. Totally against the run of play Town found themselves with a mountain to climb and desperately needed to get back into the game before the interval. To their credit they kept plugging away and, after a wonderful low cross from Ellis Iandolo, Ollie Banks pulled one back with 5 minutes of the half left. Swindon almost went in on level terms when a minute afterwards Luke Norris hit a goal-bound cannonball shot that Blues’ keeper Lee Burge somehow deflected onto his cross bar.

Swindon completely dominated the second period and the home side’s first shot of the half was not until the 81st minute when they cashed in on Swindon’s schoolboy error to hit home their third goal.

Keshi Anderson made an elementary mistake that proved disastrous for his team. He tried beating players on the edge of his own penalty area only to lose the ball and for Coventry to shoot home their third.

Prior to this Swindon had several excellent chances but failed to capitalise on any of them. A point-blank header from Luke Norris went straight at Burge and, in an unbelievable frenzied goalmouth scramble, involving four or five attempts at goal, the ball was eventually scrambled away after striking the Coventry bar.

Norris was replaced by new striker Marc Richards with half an hour left and another weird substitution was made by David Flitcroft when he replaced Gordon with the hitherto out of favour James Brophy, a player who had looked to be on his way out of the club. Neither change made any noticeable difference.

This was a disappointing return to his former club for goalkeeper Reice Charles-Cook but in all honesty, he only made one mistake, when he dropped a cross, and he was powerless to do anything about the three shots that beat him.

Swindon again gave the ball away cheaply on too many occasions and resorted to playing the ball aimlessly in the air far too often. Ollie Banks may have scored their goal, but he was largely ineffective otherwise. Town badly needed someone to put his foot on the ball and take more control in midfield. On the other hand, Ellis Iandolo had another highly impressive game, successfully harrying and closing-down his attackers and making several promising openings for his team mates.