Mark Robins failed to adjust to a change in formation ‘Do You Agree’

Mark Robins accepted responsibility for his Coventry City players’ “passive” first-half performance, which he attributed to their inability to adapt to a formation change.

The Sky Blues manager went to a 3-4-2-1 formation against West Bromwich Albion, and despite awful defending for both goals, his team was behind 1-0 at the half and 2-0 at the break. Nevertheless, City mounted a strong comeback in the second half, winning a goal thanks to a penalty awarded to Haji Wright, but they were unable to capitalize on other good opportunities at The Hawthorns.

“We were just too passive in the first half,” Robins said following the 2-1 Championship loss. “Should we select a

I believe we were too passive and unable to get out, which gave them too much possession of the ball. As a team, we had to try to play through those players in the first half. They have a solid roster of players with skill, intelligence, and experience, which is why they are in the playoffs.

We’ve had to make adjustments because of player losses, which has put us in a situation where there may be some disruption to the setup. Nevertheless, we still generated three excellent opportunities in the first half. We adopted a much more aggressive mentality in the second half.

“You can’t sit in and be a back five against anyone really, unless you are going to soak the pressure up, which is not what we want to do. But we didn’t do that well enough anyway, we didn’t move well enough in what was a nothing performance in the first half.”

Robins added: “We can take encouragement from the second half and take that into Tuesday (against Rotherham). The first half was just a non-performance and I take responsibility for that because I set them up that way. We have done it in the past to really good effect. Tonight it didn’t work, but what happened in the second half was much better.

“So we can take that second half and level of performance, which was much, much better. It was more aggressive against a good side, so it’s no mean feat to come here and perform the way we did, and even though we conceded the two goals, the second half was miles, miles better.”