Sky Blues manager Mark Robins acknowledges that mistakes will be made as his players adjust to a new playing style in the latest Coventry City news from Flashfootball news.
Mark Robins has explained one of the reasons why he thinks his Coventry City players have given away late goals in recent weeks as the manager looks to stamp down a change in his footballing philosophy.
The sky blues conceded goals between the 85th and 94th minutes in the four games before Wednesday night’s welcome clean sheet against Blackburn Rovers, denying them four points from each of the 1-1 draws with Hull and Huddersfield and potentially a point in the 3-2 defeat at Cardiff. Robins has five centre-halves competing for three available places in the manager’s preferred 3-4-1-2 formation with Bobby Thomas, Kyle McFadzean and Luis Binks having been in place in the starting line-up for the last three games, prior to which Joel Latibeaudiere had been a regular starter. Deadline day signing Liam Kitching, meanwhile, has made two substitution appearances from the bench so far.
Asked if the new-look back line is finally settling down after keeping the ball out of the back of the net for the first time in six games this week, the City boss said: “It’s not as simple as that. You’ve got to work into it and I think we still make some mistakes. And it’s not just the defence, it’s the whole team. You know that we make some mistakes and we can give opponents a sniff. But we’re not on our own because you see mistakes are being made all over the place.”
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Explaining a tweak to City’s playing style, he added: “This season we want to be a possession based team, more so than we were last year. We’ve tried to build the team and the squad to accommodate that and to make that happen. And while you’re asking them to make a lot of decisions, sometimes they’re going to get them right and sometimes they’re going to get them wrong. But that’s the way we play. That’s the way we want to play. And that’s the way we can sustain success over a longer period of time.
“So that’s our philosophy and it won’t change. We’ll just keep going until we can get that clicking properly, but you can see signs of it. I think there’s some really encouraging signs and the supporters know that. I talk about it regularly just to make sure that message is heard and understood, but our support has been fantastic. They understand what we’re trying to do. And whilst it can be frustrating getting there from time to time, we’ll get there eventually. And we’ll do that together.”
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