Killer instinct missing all season, says gaffer
MARK Robins admits that while Coventry City’s promotion push has taken a nose-dive in the last three games, the problems have been there all season.
The Sky Blues boss knows his side hasn’t been ruthless enough in front of goal and can’t help but reflect on the bad luck that has set back the team’s progress and now threatens to derail their ambitions to get back to League One at the first attempt.
Although having slipped to ninth place over the last week, City are still only three points off the play-offs with 14 games to go and have plenty to play for in the last three months of the campaign.
Their immediate cause is not made any easier by the fact that they have to play teams above them in their next three League Two games – Mansfield Town, Wycombe Wanderers and Lincoln City – two of which are away from home where Robins’s men have struggled to get results this term, having lost eight times on the road – half of their trips so far – and winning on five occasions.
And Robins admits: “The wheels have just started to come off in the last three games and we’ve not done enough.
“The truth is we have not done enough to win games and that’s probably not just now, it’s throughout the whole season.
“So we have not managed to put teams away often enough. But we have got to keep going.”
City have suffered horrendous injuries this season, starting with the early campaign blow when Tony Andreu – a player recruited for his creativity and vital experience – was ruled out for the season with a cruciate knee injury before he’d barely got started after joining the Sky Blues from
We have not done enough to win games and that’s probably not just now, it’s throughout the whole season
Championship Norwich City. Next up was the loss of Jodi Jones – City’s standout player of the first four months, who also suffered a seasonending knee injury. The 20-year-old scored five goals and provided several assists as Coventry’s key dangerman whom opposition managers feared with his pace and skill going forward.
Then, more recently, the absence of the hugely influential captain Michael Doyle with a knee injury and impressive right-back Jack Grimmer with a hamstring strain – both of whom had been virtually ever present – was another body blow to the team.
“I don’t want to stand here and talk about our issues and what have you,” said Robins, “But it’s clear to see that if we keep a fully fit squad we’re a different animal – a totally different animal. It’s just been a really, really poor run of luck.”