Mark Robins points to ‘incredible’ reason why Coventry City didn’t beat Norwich
Coventry City match reaction from CoventryLive as Mark Robins gives his post-match verdict on today’s match at the CBS Arena
Mark Robins was disappointed his Coventry City side didn’t manage to take the full three points against a resolute Norwich side whose emergency defending he described as “incredible”.
The Sky Blues came from behind at the CBS Arena where they conceded a first half goal just before the break, but went on to dominate the second half when the returning Milan van Ewijk sparked an own goal from Ben Gibson. The centre-back headed into his own net amid a frantic end to the game, when City went agonisingly close to snatching a win.
Asked if it was a well deserved point, the Coventry manager said: “Very much so, but I think we can be a little bit disappointed that we didn’t go on and win it. That’s the first time we feel that we’ve been able to have any sort of meaningful possession, and even though we went behind we knew we were in the game.
“We got in at half-time at 1-0 down and we knew we were in the game; well in it. And the fact that we were shows that there’s been a significant step forward been taken. And the fact that we ended up pinning them in for large parts of the second half, and especially at the end.”
Robins made a triple substitution in the 71st minute when Van Ewijk, Matty Godden and Joel Latibeaudiere replaced Jay Dasilva, Haji Wright and Liam Kitching, which served to ramp things up for the Sky Blues.
“When I made the changes I think that had a benefit because it re-energised us, which was really important,” said the City boss
With Milan coming on and Tatsu (Sakamoto) changing sides it gave us a different dimension and they made changes to try to nullify it, but I thought Milan was blistering and he was really unfortunate not to score when the goalkeeper made a great save from him at the end after he managed to get himself into a goal scoring position.
“Tatsu had a diving header and Yasin (Ayari) had a shot and their emergency defending was incredible. I think Jonathan Rowe got a block on one that looked goal-bound in the first half, so their emergency defending has been very, very good and it sort of stopped us taking all three points and maybe scoring two, three or four goals, so from that point of view that’s pleasing.”
He added: “It keeps our unbeaten record at home intact and that’s huge. And this point is a big point on the back of the two previous wins, so seven points from three games is really good and we can look forward to building, and hopefully we can start to get a few players back now and hopefully things will start to look a little bit better after the international break.”
