Midfield switch muddles Mogga
ROBINS RINGS THE CHANGES AS SKY BLUES EARN A POINT AT ROVERS
MARK Robins felt his Coventry City side deserved more than what he described as a “big point away from home” at Blackburn Rovers where they were reduced to ten men for the last eight minutes.
Leo Ostigard was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Adam Armstrong, having earlier earned a booking when he reacted to being fouled himself – the Sky Blues boss accusing Rovers’ skipper Darragh Lenihan of stamping on the defender in the box.
“I thought we were brilliant in the first half,” said Robins, speaking after the 1-1 draw at Ewood Park.
“I thought we started brightly, we controlled the game, they didn’t really have anything in an attacking sense in the opening 25 minutes and then for some inexplicable reason we started giving the ball away to them, which gave them a foothold, and they’ve got quality players in the final third.
“You can’t switch off for a second but we gave them a sniff and they ended up scoring the goal. We got the press wrong and they managed to get the ball across the box with the power that they’ve got on the right-hand side with Nyambe.
“We didn’t deal with the ball across the box very well and it was a blow.
“It’s then about reactions. I was pleased to get to half-time intact and to be able to regroup a little bit.”
He added: “The secondhalf was a lot better out of possession. It was a really difficult surface to play on, a pudding of a pitch, but both teams tried to do that.
“We moved the ball better when we had it in the second-half, we had a bit more purpose without the ball and away from home that’s what we have to do because, as you know, our away form hasn’t been good enough. “But this week’s away performances have proven we can play to a really good level even though we’ve not got the points that we feel we deserve.
“We deserved something from Swansea and we certainly deserved the three points today.”
As for the sending off, the manager
This week’s away performances have proven we can play to a really good level even though we’ve not got the points that we feel we deserve. Mark Robins
said: “To go down to ten men was a travesty.
“The reaction from Leo was unusual. You can see there are two stud marks, two scrawls down his legs from where he was stamped on in the box, which led to him getting his first yellow card.
“Then after that for the second I didn’t see there was anything in it but the referee got his cards out pretty quickly to send him off, and obviously that’s another blow to us because we were trying to win the game and then it was just a case of just trying to hold on.
“He didn’t need to go and do that, to make the referee make a decision but it wasn’t a yellow card challenge by any stretch.”