Mark Robins has explained one of the reasons why he thinks his Coventry City players have given away late goals in recent weeks as the manager looks to stamp down a change in his footballing philosophy.
The Sky Blues conceded goals between the 85th and 94th minutes in the four games before Wednesday night’s welcome clean sheet against Blackburn Rovers, denying them four points from each of the 1-1 draws with Hull and Huddersfield and potentially a point in the 3-2 defeat at Cardiff. Robins has five centre-halves competing for three available places in the manager’s preferred 3-4-1-2 formation with Bobby Thomas, Kyle McFadzean and Luis Binks having been in place in the starting line-up for the last three games, prior to which Joel Latibeaudiere had been a regular starter. Deadline day signing Liam Kitching, meanwhile, has made two substitution appearances from the bench so far.
Explaining a tweak to City’s playing style, he added: “This season we want to be a possession based team, more so than we were last year. We’ve tried to build the team and the squad to accommodate that and to make that happen. And while you’re asking them to make a lot of decisions, sometimes they’re going to get them right and sometimes they’re going to get them wrong. But that’s the way we play. That’s the way we want to play. And that’s the way we can sustain success over a longer period of time.
So, it is our guiding principle, and it won’t alter. You can already see traces of it clicking, so we’ll just keep continuing till we get it right. The supporters are aware of some extremely positive signals, in my opinion. To make sure that message is heard and understood, I frequently bring it up, but our support has been outstanding. They are aware of our objectives. And although getting there occasionally can be frustrating, we’ll get there. And we’ll accomplish that jointly.