Mark Robins hails Coventry’s match-winner Viktor Gyokeres as ‘priceless’

Posted Sunday, November 13, 2022 by PA

Mark Robins hailed match-winner Viktor Gyokeres as priceless following his brace that earned Coventry their fourth win on the bounce with a 2-0 victory against QPR.

The Swede opened the scoring on 12 minutes after latching onto Jamie Allen’s mis-kick before slotting past Seny Dieng following Callum O’Hare’s well-weighted pass.

“He loves to score goals, he doesn’t love much else,” joked Robins. “He can score all sorts of goals and he’s learning how to do it in a tough environment because I think he got whacked all over the place again.

“He was clever, he found space and the pass to him was a sublime pass, the weight of it is great because he’s able to take it out of his feet and then stroke it in the corner.

“He was unlucky with the header and a couple of other situations but he worked his socks off again.

“You can’t replace him, everybody needs to know that, everybody should know that, in the football department everybody does know that, he’s one of a kind and there aren’t that many around. He’s priceless.”

The victory ensured it was the first time since December 2002 that Coventry have won four games in a row in the second tier as Ben Wilson kept his 10th clean sheet in 13 outings.

Robins explained: “You know it’s going to be a tough game and we have to be at our best. We were at our best, there’s no doubt. That today was up there with the performances but you can see also that teams have played a lot of games.

“I thought we’d recovered really well, we’re two games shy of most, three of some still and there was some brilliant play culminating in two brilliant goals and it could have been more.

“It’s been fairly even in terms of possession but we kept their chances down to a minimum and Ben’s made a brilliant save that’s going in the top corner.

“We’ve ended up with another clean sheet which is fantastic and scored two brilliant goals, some of the football was scintillating, some of it was up there with the best performances I think that’s for sure.”

QPR boss Michael Beale was also keen to praise Gyokeres, who netted for the third consecutive game to take his tally for the season to eight.

“I thought he was the best player on the pitch,” admitted Beale. “I thought he was the difference between the two teams.

“The difference between the two teams was their striker was particularly sharp and we all know he’s a very, very good player so it’s disappointing because I’m sat here at the end of another defeat when I thought at moments in the game we showed we’re a good football team.”

Rangers slumped to their third defeat on the bounce as the London side dropped out of the play-off positions in the process.

Beale added: “Today I thought we played against a good team that are in a good moment, I thought we grew into the game and at half-time I thought we came out and made a lot of the running without showing anything in the final third that was enough to go and score, but I thought between the boxes we actually played well at times second half.

“The break is coming at a good time because we haven’t won for five games, which includes four defeats, I’m not sure in the last week all of our performances have deserved no points if I’m honest but that’s where we’re at, we’ve had a blip and we’re seventh in the Championship.”