COVENTRY City suffered an embarrassing 4-3 defeat against National League side Wrexham as the Sky Blues were dumped out of the FA Cup in the third round.
Mark Robins’ side conceded twice in the opening 20 minutes before Ben Sheaf halved the deficit only for Wrexham to strike again in first-half injury time.
And Jonathan Panzo was then sent off for handball as Paul Mullin scored the resulting penalty to leave Coventry three goals and a man down on the hour mark.
However, Viktor Gyokeres and Kasey Palmer both scored to set up a grandstand finish only for Wrexham to hold on and cause one of the shocks of the third round.
City boss Robins was embarrassed by his side’s first-half performance and was disappointed to have to deploy his key players from the bench.
Robins said: “It went wrong at the start of the game, I don’t think I’ve ever been as embarrassed as a manager for the first 60 minutes.
“We’ve got a situation now where we’re out of the cup and it was an embarrassing situation.
“Even on the back of it we scored three really good goals, hit the post two or three times and we’ve had opportunities to score two or three more.
“It’s hugely disappointing, we’ve got to move on and dust ourselves down, it hurts that, well done Wrexham because they’ve had a right go.
“You’ve got players that come in and have to perform and they haven’t performed, so that’s a disappointment but it sometimes happens and it’s not ideal when it happens and this is one of those days.
“Nobody can come to me and say why am I not playing because there is your answer, we should’ve been able to win that game today without the need of all the other players because they needed a breather.”
Wrexham took the lead on 12 minutes when Sam Dalby’s downward header from Luke Young’s cross from the right beat Simon Moore from six yards out.
And the visitors doubled their lead six minutes later when Elliot Lee’s cross from the left curled all the way in moments after Palmer had hit the post with a free-kick at the other end.
Coventry eventually reduced the deficit on 36 minutes when Sheaf’s venomous shot from Martyn Waghorn’s touch went through Wrexham goalkeeper Mark Howard.
However, Wrexham restored their two-goal cushion in the first minute of first-half injury time when Thomas O’Connor headed into the right-hand corner after Coventry failed to deal with a long throw from the right.
And things went from bad to worse for City after the break when Panzo blocked Max Cleworth’s goalbound shot with his arm in the box.
That allowed Mullin to coolly slot the resulting penalty into the bottom left corner to send Moore the wrong way.
In desperate need of a response, Palmer hit the post for a second time before he then teed up substitute Gyokeres who finished beyond Howard on 69 minutes to cut the deficit to two goals.
And the comeback was on when Palmer curled a sensational free-kick over the wall and into the right side of the goal from 25-yards out on 76 minutes with Howard rooted to the spot.
The Sky Blues searched for an equaliser and went close through Jamie Allen and Gyokeres, with the latter seeing a shot pushed onto the post, before Palmer blazed over City’s final chance of the game.
Coventry are next in action away at Burnley on Saturday, January 14 with kick-off at 3pm at Turf Moor.
