Robins: Coventry deserved hard-earned point

Posted Sunday, February 24, 2019 by PA

Coventry boss Mark Robins felt his side were thoroughly deserving of a point at Luton after holding the in-form league leaders to a 1-1 draw.

The City chief saw substitute Jordan Shipley cancel out Matty Pearson’s early header before the break, and hang on for a share of the spoils in the second period.

Luton were on a six-game winning streak and looking to go seven points clear at the summit, but Coventry held firm to become only the fourth team to avoid defeat at Kenilworth Road in League One this season.

Robins said: “We conceded a really rubbish goal, we’ve been working on drills for hours like that, but we still conceded it, it shouldn’t have come to it.

‘’Lee Burge should’ve saved it, fortunately he made amends right at the death to keep us in it and pick up the point in the end as it was their last chance.

‘’Luton are a really good side, it took us a while to get used to it and get our foot into it today, but once we did get our foot into it we looked good too and caused a threat.

’We had a young team who all played really well and stuck at it, so it was a hard-earned point, but deserved which we worked hard for.”

The hosts had two good chances early on but both James Collins and Andrew Shinnie fired over the top.

Shinnie saw another attempt go wide of the mark, before Luton took a 17th-minute lead when James Justin’s corner was headed home by Pearson.

City were level after 34 minutes, however, when Jordy Hiwula got to the byline and pulled it back for substitute Shipley to find the net.

Luke Thomas then missed the target from range, while in the second half, Town skipper Sonny Bradley’s header was cleared off the line by Liam Kelly.

City had a late chance, Dominic Hyam heading over, but Luton should have won it in stoppage time when Alan McCormack could only fire straight at keeper Burge from close range.

Town chief Mick Harford was left frustrated by the final outcome, as his side were unable to make it a seventh successive league victory.

He said: “Overall, we’re disappointed with the result, we did enough in my opinion to win the game.

“We got in numerous times down the right hand side with some very intricate play, especially from Jack Stacey and Andrew Shinnie, cut-backs and Andrew bursting through a couple of times.

“Fair play to Coventry and they have a very expansive game, they’ve got some good players, good young players who will go on to have good careers.

“They made it difficult for us for 20-25 minutes, and we had to counter that.

“At half-time, we had a little reshuffle so to speak and second half I think we countered their strengths very well.”