Robins sees the bright side of loss

MARK ROBINS hailed a “brilliant” Coventry performance in defeat at Ashton Gate.

Centre-back Rob Dickie headed his first Bristol City goal from a Taylor-gardnerhickman free-kick in firsthalf stoppage time after the Sky Blues had dominated from the opening whistle.

Coventry clipped the crossbar twice through shots from Ben Sheaf and Matt Godden, as well as squandering numerous chances closer to goal.

Boss Robins could not believe they were behind at the break.

He said: “I should be talking about a brilliant away performance because that’s what it was.

“Instead, we are reflecting on a defeat because we just lacked that cutting edge and have lost to a sucker-punch.

“We could have played until midnight and not scored. It wasn’t our day, but you make your own luck and some of the decision-making in front of goal was poor.”

A goal-saving challenge in injury time completed a memorable day for Dickie and rewarded City’s improvement in the second half after they had switched to a back-four.

With a three-man defence, the Robins had looked all at sea and boss Nigel Pearson reacted by shuffling his pack on 37 minutes, replacing youngster Haydon Roberts with Jason Knight.

Assistant manager Curtis Fleming said: “We lost a couple of players to injury in the build-up to the game and it was a great win.

“Coventry were really good, but sometimes you have to win ugly and the change of shape made a big difference.”

BRISTOL CITY: O’leary 7; Dickie 8, King 7, Pring 7; Sykes 8, M James 7, Weimann 6, Gardner-hickman 6, Roberts 5 (Knight (38) 7); Bell 5 (Yeboah (75) 6), Conway 5 (Cornick (66) 6) COVENTRY: Wilson 6; Thomas 7, Mcfadzean 7 (Latibeaudiere (90) 6), Binks 7; Van Ewijk 7, Eccles 7 Sheaf 7, Dasilva 7; Godden 7, Sakamoto 7 (Ayari (75) 6), Simms 6 (Wright (75) 6) STAR MAN: Mark Sykes – The Bristol winger excelled when switched to right-back in a tactical shuffle.

David Webb 7