MARK Robins felt his Coventry City side lacked ‘pride’ in their disappointing 3-0 home defeat against Preston North End.
The Sky Blues suffered their heaviest defeat of the season as first-half goals from Emil Riis, Will Keane and a Bobby Thomas own goal left the home side stunned.
And Robins insists he and his players can not feel sorry for themselves and must provide a response in the FA Cup against Maidstone on Monday night.
Robins said: “There was no pride in that, it didn’t even look like a performance it looked like a group of individuals who looked scared stiff and let them get on top of us.
“There were some poor individual performances and decisions, and we have to look at that and its even difficult to pick the bones out of it because it was so poor.
“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, we have to be ready to go again against Maidstone.
“We have to take this on the chin and take all the criticism we’re going to get and stick out chest out and put in a performance in the FA Cup.”
Preston broke the deadlock inside the opening minute as Emil Riis headed home Alan Browne’s high ball into the box from five-yards out.
And the Lilywhites doubled their lead on 20 minutes when Keane finished on the turn from six-yards out after Riis won the ball back following a slide challenge on Jay Dasilva inside the Coventry box.
The visitors sealed the points on 38 minutes as Thomas turned Riis’s low cross from the left into his own net on a night to forget for the Sky Blues.
Robins added: “It’s been as bad as it’s been for a good few years. Even the Stoke game when we lost 4-0 last year, it was worse than that.
“Sometimes the game gets away from you early in the game. We conceded after a minute with a really poor goal, and we have to defend that better.
“We can concede goals form corner, you don’t always get it your own way, but they set their stall out from the first minute and we didn’t cope with that.
“We’ve been old-manned, they have an experienced line-up and they have run harder than us and fought harder than us and they have done the dirty side better than anyone who has been here and they deserved to win there’s no doubt about it, it’s just the manner of the defeat.”
Coventry are next in action at home to Maidstone United on Monday, January 26 in the FA Cup with kick-off at 7.45pm at the CBS Arena.
