Mark Robins praises ‘outstanding’ Coventry after draw with Swansea

Mark Robins has hailed his “brave” Coventry side who he says should have come away with all three points in a 1-1 draw with Swansea.

Jordan Shipley gave the Sky Blues the lead after 19 minutes before Andre Ayew put Swansea back on level terms.

Coventry could have grabbed the win late on, with Ryan Giles and Callum O’Hare both going close.

“We played with intensity and aggression.” Robins said. “We were on the front foot, the speed was good, we moved the ball well – there was a scrappy fifteen minutes in the first half but other than that I thought we were outstanding.

“We had some good chances to win it and only disappointment is we didn’t keep a clean sheet.

“I though we were much better, I’m delighted with my team – when you have the quality Swansea possess, someone like Andre Ayew – he just doesn’t miss the target – one chance and they scored it.

“We’re disappointed we haven’t gone on to win it cos Callum O’Hare had a great chance at the end. Things we can work on, but overall, for our confidence it does us the world of good.

“Matty Godden was outstanding, great vision and awareness for our goal – it was a great finish from Shipley – but what a performance from Godden.

“We’re still finding our feet in terms of fitness but apart from their goal we’ve dealt with everything else.

“We gave them a real scare and that will give us a load of confidence. Thought we were brave and put in a real performance.”

Shipley gave Coventry the lead on 19 minutes when he met a Matty Godden pull back on the edge of the box. His smart left-footed effort beat Freddie Woodman in the Swansea goal and clipped in off the post.

Swansea then equalised on 42 minutes through Ayew. Matt Grimes played a superb ball down the left to an overlapping Jake Bidwell who had to stretch to pull it back for Ayew. The forward skipped past a defender before slotting left footed into the bottom corner past Marko Marosi.

Last-ditch defending saw Connor Roberts clear a Ryan Giles shot off the line, then O’Hare’s header glanced off the post after a Ben Sheaf cross.

A disappointed Steve Cooper said: “I didn’t like our first half performance and truth be told I was pleased not be down with Andre getting us back in the game

“Coventry do things a bit different tactically and you have to respect that – it got them promoted last season.

“We didn’t start the game with enough intensity and endeavour and I don’t like that, for as much as I want us to play football I want us to be a team that works hard and fights and we didn’t do that well enough in the first half – I had to tell them to work harder to match Coventry in the second half.

“Going one down probably gave us the smack in the face we needed.

“For 25 minutes of the second half, we had momentum but for some reason we gave it up and ended up being deep conceding too many balls in the box.

“We didn’t create enough chances and because I didn’t like our performance, I’m happy with a point.”