FOOTBALL: MARK Robins was left ‘disappointed’ and ‘frustrated’ after the Sky Blues’ brief reign at the top of League Two came to an abrupt end on Saturday afternoon.
The 47-year-old admitted his side are – mentally – ‘normally better than that’ following a one goal defeat to Welsh outfit Newport County.
Coventry are now fourth in the League Two table after just three of the season’s 46 fixtures.
Robins said: “It was disappointing and it was frustrating. The passing was not good enough and we gave the ball away far too much.
“We were not as good as we have been. We have had an off day and we have to learn from it.
“We are all going to make mistakes from time to time and on Saturday we saw one of those.”
Part of the blame for Saturday’s loss will fall to City keeper Liam O’Brien, whose second half blunder saw Newport take an unlikely lead following a long range strike from Reece Cole.
“Liam will have to learn a lesson from that because it was an easy save and he has taken his eye off it for whatever reason,” said Robins.
“Whether he was trying to get on with the game or not I do not know, but he has taken his eye off the ball.
“Then they (Newport County) had something to cling onto so they put men behind the ball and made changes to do that.
“Their keeper has then pulled off two unbelievably good saves to maintain their lead.”
One positive from Saturday’s game was the debut appearance from Tony Andreu.
Though Andreu failed to score, he tested Newport’s ‘keeper on multiple occasions and forced some key saves.
Robins said: “I think it was important that we made changes and Tony Andreu coming on gave us what we needed and we were then creating chances.
“Credit to Newport because they have worked hard and put us on the back foot a little bit.
“It is important that we learn from this and that we know that we cannot just turn up and win games. Mentally we are normally better than that.
“We are going to have these set-backs, we knew that and it has been a great start up until this so we have just got to get back to playing and back to what we are good at – and we will.”
