Ephron Mason-Clark impresses, 32-year-old shocking – Coventry’s three winners and losers vs Wrexham
Frank Lampard’s Coventry City suffered their first league defeat of the season in North Wales as a Kieffer Moore hat-trick fired Wrexham to a 3-2 win on Friday night.
Coventry survived a few early Wrexham chances to go ahead in the 22nd minute through Ephron Mason-Clark’s first-time finish after he had broken clear of the hosts’ defence.
Wrexham piled the pressure on to the league-leaders in the second-half and found an equaliser just before the hour mark as Josh Windass’ cross was turned home by Kieffer Moore.
Moore was at it again nine minutes later as he latched on to another Windass cross to power home a header, and he bagged a perfect hat-trick seven minutes from time as Windass again turned to provider before he fired past Carl Rushworth for 3-1.
Tatsuhiro Sakamoto scored late on as Coventry tried to get back into it, but it ended 3-2, and Football Insider have looked at three winners and losers from the Coventry side as their unbeaten run came to an end at the Racecourse Ground.
Winners
Ephron Mason-Clark
The goal contributions haven’t quite flowed as well as he would have liked, but Mason-Clark has still been impressive at the start of this campaign amid Coventry’s strong form as a team.
He netted his second strike of the season in North Wales to open the scoring, and gave Issa Kabore a really hard time all evening down the left flank.
Mason-Clark’s decent showing was made to look even better by fellow forwards Brandon Thomas-Asante and Haji Wright both seriously struggling to make an impact, and he will surely be keeping his place in the team as a result.
Tatsuhiro Sakamoto
Sakamoto continued his fine form as he provided a brilliant assist for Mason-Clark’s opener and brought the Sky Blues back into it with a stunning strike late on.
The Japanese winger completed the most dribbles (3) and won the most duels (11) in the match, while he also won the most fouls of any player, with four.
Carl Rushworth
It is easy to see why Carl Rushworth was linked to clubs like Rangers and West Ham in the summer as he sought an exit route out of Brighton.
He was eventually loaned to Coventry, and has been a key man for them in-between the sticks so far this season with Thomas Tuchel earmarking him for an England call-up.
Even though he did concede three to Moore, he still impressed more than most here as he kept Lampard’s side on level terms early on with a brilliant save to deny Lewis O’Brien and was let down by his teammates in defence.
Losers
Jake Bidwell
Jake Bidwell was trusted to start ahead of Miguel Brau as first-choice left-back Jay Dasilva was rested, but he did not do himself any favours going forward with a pretty stale, lacklustre showing.
The 32-year-old was caught way out-of-position twice in the first-half as Lewis O’Brien and Josh Windass failed to make him pay, and two of the visitors’ goals came from his flank before he was taken off in the 74th minute.
Liam Kitching
Liam Kitching has been a reliable presence at the back for Coventry for a number of years, but he struggled to cope with Kieffer Moore at the Racecourse Ground on Friday night.
The centre-back got drawn into tussling with the big Welshman on a number of occasions, and he was the man at fault for his leveller as he played him onside then failed to deal with Windass’ cross.
Milan van Ewijk
Even though Bidwell did not impress, the same could not be said for the Sky Blues’ right-back Kaine Kesler-Hayden.
Kesler-Hayden, who joined Coventry from Aston Villa in the summer, did his utmost to thwart any Wrexham attacks down his flank, and so it transpired that he emerged from the game as one of the few visiting players with any credit in the bank.
Van Ewijk nearly joined Wolves ahead of this season, such is his quality from the right side of the back-four, but a suspension ruled him out of facing Wrexham and he may well find it hard to get back into the team based off Kesler-Hayden’s performance.