MARK Robins felt his Coventry City side ‘stopped running’ in the second half of their defeat against Norwich City.
The Sky Blues suffered their first home defeat of the season against the Canaries at the Coventry Building Society Arena as Borja Sainz scored the game’s only goal.
And Robins felt his side did not track Norwich’s runners in the second half which left the Sky Blues boss disappointed.
Robins said: “We have to match the opponent for their work rate before you can earn the right to play any football.
“We were really disjointed in the second half and we stopped running and they found it difficult to pick people up and stay with runners which is really disappointing.
“The first rule in football, you have to stay with your runners, and they run, but spaces appeared and when we got the ball, we ended up marking ourselves.
“We then allowed them to foul us and injure Tatsu, without any response whatsoever.
“There was a disconnect between players in certain areas, so we have to work on that and that’s the disappointment for me.”
Robins also felt his side lost discipline in their positions on the pitch after conceding as City chased the game in search of an equaliser.
Robins added: “I don’t want us to sit off and we gave them too much when they had the ball. We got dragged about because we lost discipline in positions because we want to be on the front foot.
“Sometimes if they get on top, you make sure you don’t concede and get into a solid shape, and we didn’t do that either.
“I wasn’t happy with it, I didn’t feel we had enough control but their legs were starting to go and you saw our players and their players going down with cramp.”
The City boss admitted his side could not take many positives from the fixture and wants his players to fight fire with fire in future games following some strong challenges from the Canaries.
He said: “They were bringing people down and some of the fouls were a disgrace and it is what it is, we have to learn from that.
“If that’s the league then you have to fight fire with fire and we have to do that, but it just wasn’t a performance we can take many positives from.”
Coventry are next in action away at Watford on Saturday, September 14 with kick-off at 3pm at Vicarage Road.
