A grateful Mark Robins was grateful for a mistake in the Barnsley defence which allowed Dom Hyam to grab a last-gasp winner for Coventry.
The defender was in the right place at the right time after Ben Sheaf’s hopeful ball into the area and calmly finished to seal a 1-0 win for City.
“It took a poor piece of defensive play from them to give us an opening which thankfully we took, which makes it a brilliant three points,” said Robins.
“It was one of those games where there were a lot of turnovers, (it was) a bit scruffy and the surface was difficult, but we moved the ball as well as we could.”
Coventry peppered Brad Collins’ goal all afternoon to no avail before Hyam’s second goal in as many games earned Coventry just their third win in 10 home league games.
Robins added: “The goal from Dominic was a really good finish and something we needed, you could see the outpouring of relief more than anything else that we had broken the deadlock.
“They’d thrown bodies up front and tried to get runners, but ultimately we defended as well as we needed to and, but for maybe a little bit of tiredness or a lack of quality at times, we could have hurt them a lot more and put them to the sword a bit earlier.
“Their clearance wasn’t great, it fell to Dominic’s feet, he hit it true and it was a really good finish, but I’m delighted with the three points.”
Barnsley boss Poya Asbaghi described losing in addied time as “the worst feeling in football”, but he was satisfied with his side’s performance after they almost nicked a point despite not having a shot on target all game.
The Swede said: “It is the worst feeling in football when you lose in injury time and it is a tough one to take.
“The first half was even, but in the second half Coventry pushed us down for longer times.
“We defended very well and did not concede too many chances against a good team at home.
“Getting a point from here with a good defensive performance, I would take it any day of the week. Unfortunately we could not keep them out until the end. We made a mistake and they didn’t.”
The defeat leaves Barnsley rooted to the foot of the Championship table, nine points from safety with just 15 games to go, without an away win all season and with just three league wins in total.
Asbaghi said: “If you win the next game people will say, ‘Barnsley are in it’. If you lose the next game, ‘We are playing League One’.
“We deserved a point. You can’t expect a team like us to come here for 90 minutes and create chances all the time.
“But in terms of the defending and the effort we put into keeping a clean sheet, I was happy.
“It is about keeping the concentration and not conceding a goal, which eventually happened.
“We have a game three days from now and the message is to keep defending like that, but we have to create more chances.”
