MARK Robins felt his Coventry City side missed another golden chance to win a high-profile game following a late collapse in a 2-1 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur in the Carabao Cup.
City were on course to secure a place in the fourth round following Brandon Thomas-Asante’s goal just past the hour mark only for late strikes from Djed Spence and Brennan Johnson to leave the Sky Blues stunned at the Coventry Building Society Arena.
And after Coventry suffered agonising defeats against Luton Town and Manchester United in the play-off final and FA Cup semi-final respectively in recent seasons, Robins felt his side spurned another opportunity to win a big game.
Robins said: “I’m trying not to swear, we were really good, we got most things right, we created some really decent openings but we still have to be more ruthless.
“Life presents you with chances and we seem to not take those chances, I look back to the play-off final and the game against Manchester United – the game was there and we just didn’t manage to take it, there’s the disappointment.
“But there are so many positives from the game, we’ve got to start converting the difficult chances, those will turn into goals for us at some point.
“Tottenham are probably relieved to go through at our expense, we’re looking at trying to be in their company week in week out again as a club in the top tier.”
Thomas-Asante turned home Norman Bassette’s cross on 63 minutes to put City ahead only for substitute Spence to level the game two minutes from time before Johnson scored a dramatic winner two minutes into injury time.
And while Robins felt his side should not have allowed Tottenham to stage a late comeback he hopes his players take confidence from their performance ahead of a home game against Swansea City this weekend.
Robins added: “The players will be disappointed and rightly so but they should take great confidence from the game all the same.
“We were in a position to go and win it, it’s a really big high-profile game, all the plaudits that come with that, we haven’t been in that round for a long time and we end up going out.
“It is disappointing from that perspective but I’ve got to look past that and get on with preparing us for the game against Swansea this weekend.
“The comeback was unexpected, it shouldn’t have happened but it comes from a mixture of our poor decision making, tiredness and not taking our opportunities earlier in the game.
“You can never say with a minute to go what might or might not happen, you’ve got to play to the final whistle and unfortunately for us we gave up two opportunities and they took them.”
