Robins relishes victory as Coventry win at temporary home

Coventry manager Mark Robins hailed an “outstanding” victory over Southend at the Sky Blues’ new temporary home at St Andrew’s.

A second-half Zain Westbrooke goal was enough to secure Coventry all three points.

Robins said: “I thought it was really good. We’ve got a win here early on, which is outstanding. It was terrific and I’m really happy with the three points.

“It’s like moving house. While the environment’s slightly different, you get used to it really quickly.

“They started to come into it at the end. They had a bit more experience in their ranks. They brought on two changes and freshened it up a little bit, which gave them more of a foothold in the game.

“But I thought we were outstanding; (Kyle) McFadzean deserved his man of the match, but there were a number of man of the match performances.”

Southend manager Kevin Bond said: “That was a game of two halves really… we were straight out of the blocks in the second half, didn’t lose the ball and worked really hard and I was pleased.

“You try to be brave and be on the ball when possible, move the ball quickly but we didn’t retain the ball anywhere near as well as we wanted to do in the first half.

“We kept giving the ball away and it makes it very difficult for you. We need to take a look at what we did in the second half, change the shape, which helped us to be fair.

“But it’s disappointing we didn’t retain the ball and we paid the price – although I thought we were unlucky at the end and we could have come away with something.”