Mark Robins credits Coventry’s ‘belief’ for comeback win against Fulham

Mark Robins explained that he told his Coventry players to believe at half-time before their second-half onslaught against Fulham resulted in a 4-1 Sky Bet Championship victory.

The Sky Blues went into the break a goal down after Kyle McFadzean’s own goal before a brace from Viktor Gyokeres, Matty Godden’s penalty and Ian Maatsen’s thunderbolt completed a remarkable turnaround.

“I said believe, just about belief,” said Robins. “Knowing they were getting in good positions to stop them, but also having the belief, the vision and ability to do what we want to do, which was move the ball really quickly and shift them.

“We know where they were and where we could exploit and they exploited their positions really well by quick movement, good vision, good execution of passes and a willingness to press and get all over them.”

Coventry came into the game on the back of a 5-0 drubbing by Luton at Kenilworth Road on Wednesday night, but saw off Marco Silva’s side to maintain their 100 per cent home record in the Championship.

Robins added: “On the back of the other night it could have easily gone the other way but also I know how good they are and they need to believe that and believe it from the start of games but they have done here.

“We’ve got to give Luton credit, we learnt a lot from the other night, it was a slap in the face and a kick up the backside, but we responded really well and did a really good job going into an international break.”

Coventry came out a different side after Robins’ words of wisdom at half-time, scoring three goals in 14 minutes before Gyokeres completed the rout on 70 minutes.

The 51-year-old explained: “The goals were outstanding, Matty has taken the penalty really cleanly, Viktor has scored two great goals again, the first one very calm, the second one was an unbelievable pass from Godden.”

Silva apologised to the Fulham fans who travelled hoping their side could reclaim top spot in the Championship with a win.

“It’s something that I don’t like to say but I have to apologise to our fans,” bemoaned Silva. “The second half was wrong, everything was all wrong from the beginning to the end of the second half.

“It was a balanced game first half, they started strong and they tried to show a reaction after the tough result they had last Wednesday, we tried to do it in the same way.

“We controlled the first half and we scored early and they didn’t create many chances apart from some corners. We tried to change something during half-time to explore the space we knew they can create with their organisation and after that everything went wrong.

“Unfortunately the referee did everything wrong as well because it’s a clear dive for the penalty, no foul at all, but it is not his fault we lost.

“After that we had enough time to react, to do different things, but we have to react in a different way.”