22 October 2022

Mark Robins hails ‘brilliant’ win after Coventry revival continues at Stoke

22 October 2022

Mark Robins paid tribute to his Coventry City side as they moved closer to safety with a third successive win.

The Sky Blues closed the gap to 21st place to one point with a 2-0 victory at Stoke.

Second-half strikes from Jamie Allen and Gustavo Hamer proved the difference for the visitors as they stretched their unbeaten away run to five games.

The hosts dominated for large spells but found no way beyond Coventry, who recorded a sixth clean sheet in seven games.

Robins’ side have now suffered only one defeat in eight as their revival continues.

Robins said: “It’s a brilliant away win. I’m delighted because they were better than us in the first part of the game. But we stayed in the game when we weren’t at our best.

“For all their possession, they’ve only really had (Phil) Jagielka’s chance, and we’ve defended really well.

“We scored two absolutely unbelievable goals; they probably didn’t belong in this game because I thought it was a bit scrappy.

“Due to the way we stuck at it, the way we grew into it and the way we took the goals, I thought we deserved to win it.

“Ultimately, we’ve got to try and improve what we do in possession, but you can forgive them because of the way they’re working and sticking together.”

Robins also paid tribute to the 2,487 strong away support: “I hear the noise from the fans. I know they’re really vocal and really behind the players and that’s a big boost.

“In over five years here, they’ve been absolutely magnificent and they’re getting better all the time and the players respond to that.

“Their confidence should be gleaning from that, so I’m really pleased with the overall performance and the goals because they are outstanding.”

It was a second home defeat in the space of five days for Stoke, who slumped to 17th in the Championship.

The Potters had their fair share of opportunities with Jagielka striking the crossbar.

But their wastefulness in front of goal was punished, much to the frustration of boss Alex Neil.

He said: “Goals change games. I thought until the first goal went in, we were by far the best team. It was as dominant as we’ve been.

“Against a good Coventry team, I thought we were excellent, we were dominant, and they couldn’t get out of their half in the first half.

“But the difficulty you’ve got is that nobody really cares about that; what they care about is winning games and scoring goals.

“We didn’t carry enough of a threat, we weren’t clinical enough and we made two really poor errors defensively.

“We should have done better in both aspects and the game gets taken away from us in two moments.

“Beyond that, I didn’t think Coventry had anything in the game, but nobody cares, we lost the game.

“To play well, there needs to be an end product and an output in the shape of points on the board.

“Until the first goal, you can see the type of team that we could be, but towards the end you can see why we are where we are.

“We cannot be that polarised in one game, because we’ve got far too much here to accept that being where we land, which for me is extremely frustrating.”

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