Fatigue was to blame for result – boss

MARK Robins was left scratching his head about Liam Kitching’s first of two own goals but ultimately blamed fatigue for Coventry City’s disappointing Bank Holiday defeat at home to Cardiff which the manager described as a ‘missed opportunity’.

Asked if it was a case of tiredness catching up with the players, Robins said of the 2-1 defeat: “I think yes, for me, it is a typical Championship period where there is an accumulation of games, you have an international break when some are away on duty and they come back and we play Friday and Monday. It’s that.”

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and the manager clearly questioned his starting selection, which was unchanged from Good Friday’s 3-1 win at Huddersfield.

“The questions come as to why didn’t I freshen it up but it was finger in the air time,” he said. “We got a brilliant result and decent performance at Huddersfield coming into a home game, and you want them to try to impose themselves on the game. The first really good move of the game ended in us scoring a goal; got the ball to Kasey (Palmer) and out wide to Milan (van Ewijk) who put it back inside with a brilliant pass. Ellis is finding brilliant spaces at the minute and puts us one nil up.

“And then you just want us to settle but we made some strange decisions on the ball at times. Cardiff decided pretty much to give up possession, and we stayed in contact with the ball too often and maybe played it square too much which allowed them to come and press.

“We gave them that leg up with an own goal out of nothing really and then we put ourselves under a little bit of pressure. But we didn’t do the right things often enough; didn’t get close enough to the ball and didn’t stop the crosses at the vital moments.

“And then there was the incident for their second goal where Bowler goes on the outside. We blocked the inside but then we gave him the outside and flicked a leg out and it looped up over Brad (Collins) in something akin to the 1987 own goal (from Gary Mabbutt).

“It was a game where you wanted to have the energy to see it out at a time where it’s really difficult to harness that energy.”