Coventry City boss expresses dissatisfaction regarding the protective boot after painful defeat with key players sidelined
Coventry City injury news from CoventryLive as Mark Robins provides an update on Tatsuhiro Sakamoto’s latest injury with the Sky Blues
Mark Robins was left counting the cost of yet another injury to Tatsuhiro Sakamoto following yet another defeat to bogey side Norwich City.
The Sky Blues boss accused the Canaries of trying to kick the Japanese flair player ‘out of the game’ when the two sides met last February in a 2-1 Carrow Road defeat at the hands of former manager David Wagner, with the player leaving the game battered a bruised.
The 27-year-old, who suffered three broken bones in his back weeks later against Preston North End which ruled him out for the remainder of the season, was in the wars again on Saturday when he was on the receiving end of an aggressive challenge by former Sky Blues loan star Callum Doyle, who Robins accused of “leaving one on” his player towards the end of the first half.
Sakamoto was unable to continue after the break, replaced by Ephron Mason-Clark, and left the stadium with his left ankle in a protective cast.
“It’s a 1-0 defeat here and that always hurts me,” said Robins, as City extended their winless run against the East Anglian club to nine games.
“We lost at Carrow Road last year and I wasn’t happy with that. We ended up getting Tatsu injured again after last season when they targeted him, different manager, same outcome, and I wasn’t particularly happy with the way we responded because we have to do exactly the same to the opponents because nothing happens to the opponent.
“Doyle has left one on Tatsu, hurt his ankle and absolutely nothing happens. It’s just par for the course and it’s just not right. But then we have got to get nasty.”
Asked how serious the injury is, the manager said: “He’s in a boot so we have to wait for it to settle down to see how bad it is but that, for me, is the disappointment that we didn’t really take the game by the scruff of the neck and be more aggressive, like them.”
The whole team is too nice and friendly with no real hard man to fight their corner and the moral of the story is this league is a battle so don’t play weak players. Nobody ever kicked Tommy Hutchinson and got away with it. There are no real fighters in the team so the opposition see a weakness they can exploit. I have been saying the same all pre-season.
