CRUCIAL mistakes were bemoaned by manager Mark Robins after ten-man Coventry City sank to a 3-0 defeat at Reading on Tuesday night.
After Lucas Joao’s 16th-minute opener, Andy Rinomhota gave the Sky Blues an uphill battle when doubling the Royals’ advantage seconds after the restart, while John Swift added insult to injury in the aftermath of Kyle McFadzean’s dismissal with a sumptuous third from a long-range free kick.
With City dropping a place to 18th in the Championship, Robins is cautious of letting his side slump during the second half of the season, and insists his players must stay in games for longer.
“We were playing against a really good team, but you can’t give them the goals that we gave them,” said the 51-year-old.
“That’s something that we have to stop now, losing McFadzean didn’t help, but we kept giving them opportunities. Before they scored again, we had two chances to score and didn’t take them.
“We can’t let that be a factor in the second half of the season, we have to be more clinical, we’re going to have to be better.
“We were good tonight if you take those mistakes out of it, they haven’t really created anything that has undone us so we’re disappointed, but we have to dust ourselves down and go again next week.
“Some of the play that we had was a positive, the set-piece deliveries and the chances we created from those deliveries was a positive, but there are too many negatives from tonight’s performance to be too happy about anything.”
With no fixture this weekend, the Sky Blues fans will be forced to sit tight until Coventry return with a home game against Sheffield Wednesday – currently managed by caretaker manager Neil Thompson – at St Andrew’s a week on Wednesday.
