Mark Robins was full of praise for Ellis Simms, as he made it back-to-back hat-tricks at the Coventry Building Society Arena.
Simms got the scoring underway, with goals from Joel Latibeaudiere and Fabio Tavares scoring either side of Ellis’ other two strikes.
The win moves City up to 8th in the Championship, three points off the top six and speaking after the final whistle, Robins looked back on an impressive night against Rotherham United.
The performance and Ellis Simms scoring another hat-trick…
“First half we got the early goal which helped to settle everyone if they needed settling. The goalkeeper has dropped it on Ellis’ head, and it gives him a boost of confidence and he hadn’t scored a hat-trick since last week and now he has two in a week.
It was brilliant. The first time left-foot strike was brilliant, and the goalkeeper was wrong footed and couldn’t get there and the third one was brilliant play, and it was a nice ball in and Haji sets it up and he picks out the far corner and it’s outstanding and that’s what his capable of doing.
Haji and Ellis are starting to build a good relationship up there and there’s still bits we can work on.
The supporters singing his name was fantastic too and he is calm, he doesn’t show his emotions often, but he will be delighted, and I’m pleased for him.”
The other goals on the night…
“Joel Latibeaudiere’s goal was a really good goal, and it was a good ball in from Bidders and I think he has jumped above the crossbar to head that in and it was a great leap and the goal Fabio scored was outstanding.
We tried to exploit them where we could do and wherever they gave you space and the fact we were really positive out of possession, it meant that when we turned the ball over, we had players in good positions to go and attack them.”
The second half display…
“As is sort of normal, you either mentally take your foot off the gas or the opposition come out and give it a right good go in the second half.
We kept the ball okay, there was more turnovers, but we kept them at bay with some good defending and good positions and we kept the clean sheet.”
The change of Goalkeeper’s…
“Brad Collins had a breather and potentially would have come back into the team sooner, but he was ill so I couldn’t make that change.
Then Ben keeps two clean sheets from three and that jeeps him in the team and Brad has to wait for his opportunity to come back in, not that I was trying to get Ben back out, it’s just circumstances.
I’ve got two good goalkeepers who can come in and perform at any stage which we haven’t had before and if we have two they have to fight for it and those two fight and it’s healthy, because it pushes each other and we need that in all positions.”
