Matty Godden stressed the “importance” of the Sky Blues win against Rochdale, as City claimed a fifth straight win in Sky Bet League One on Saturday afternoon.
Godden scored what proved to be the winning goal, finding the bottom left corner after being played in by Jamie Allen, after Michael Rose had opened the scoring for Mark Robins side.
The hosts pulled a goal back through Aaron Wilbraham from the restart after Godden’s strike, but City held on to claim a fifth straight win in the league which extends their unbeaten run to 11 matches in League One.
The striker admitted that whilst City weren’t at their best claiming a fifth straight win was the most important thing to take from the game.
Godden said: “The most important thing is the five wins in a row, it keeps us on track to where we want to be, it wasn’t the best performance from us considering the way that we can play, but at this time of the season it’s all about the three points.
“We came here today and we had to grind it out in the end, but we’ve come away with the three points, if you don’t play well it’s important to pick up points on the road and we’ve done that today.
“It’s a very difficult place to come under difficult circumstances with the pitch and conditions again, that’s two weeks in a row now with really poor conditions, but we’ve got two away wins.”
The Sky Blues once again played in wet and blustery conditions and Godden was delighted with how City controlled the game at times as well as scoring an early goal despite the weather.
“I started getting a little bit worried during the warm-up when the heavens opened but when we came out for kick-off it had stopped and luckily it didn’t really rain throughout the game.
“The pitch was really heavy and the wind was blowing a gale, I thought at times we controlled the game, but they passed the ball well and fair play to them for making it pretty difficult for us to get on the ball and stamp out authority on the game.
“An early goal is really important when you’re coming away from home, you’re trying to apply the pressure to them, it was a great header from Rosey and a good delivery from Walshy.”
His goal handed the Sky Blues a crucial two-goal cushion and admitted there may have been a hint of fortune about the finish.
“That goal got us on track and we probably could have scored a few more, to go two-nil up in the second half was pleasing and then we conceded a pretty sloppy goal from our point of view.
“It was just one of those, I tried to aim low and hard across the keeper, it was the cleanest of strikes, but when you’re playing on a pitch like this if you’re hitting the right areas, which I did.
“Luckily it took a little bobble over the keeper’s hand and nestled in the bottom corner, it’s just nice to see the ball hit the back of the net.
“I thought that was exactly what we needed, a nice little two-goal cushion, it was disappointing to concede from kick-off literally straight after we scored, we had a few more chances throughout the game, but we saw the game out and came away victorious in the end.”
That was Godden’s second goal in his last three games, having scored the winner against Portsmouth almost a fortnight ago.
“They were two very different goals in two very different games, it was an important goal against Portsmouth to keep us on our winning run against a team that was bang in form like ourselves.
“Again, it was a very different goal and a different type of finish today, but it keeps us on our winning streak and that only builds momentum and builds confidence for the boys.”
The Sky Blues have a tricky run of fixtures coming up, playing three sides vying for promotion in their next three games and Godden believes the fans have every right to be excited.
“It’s three games that we’ll all look forward to, we’re going into every game full of confidence, as you would with five wins in a row, we’ll take each game as it comes and see where we are when we come out after those three games.
“The fans have every right to be excited, we’re playing a good brand of football and we are where we are in the league for the right reasons, the fans can get excited.
“As players, our heads are firmly focused on what we need to do and we keep reiterating in the dressing room that we need to take it one game at a time and that’s what we’re doing which is credit to the lads and everyone has got their feet on the ground.
“The gaffer and Adi keep drilling into us that it’s a squad game, we all know that and everyone is ready to jump straight in if someone is injured or unavailable, then the gaffer knows he can trust someone and chuck them straight in the team and they’re ready and raring to go which is really important at this time of the season.”