Mark Robins relieved as Coventry earn last-gasp victory over Oxford

Posted Saturday, August 17, 2024 by PA

Mark Robins expressed his relief after Coventry earned their first victory of the season with a last-minute 3-2 Championship win at home to Oxford United.

Haji Wright scored a brace – including the winner, five minutes into second-half stoppage-time – either side of Milan Van Ewijk’s fierce strike.

Robins said: “It’s a relief and I’ve said it in years gone by, but this year might be the year I have a heart attack if we’re going to play like that.”

Oxford had twice come from a goal down through Ciaron Brown and Mark Harris before Wright’s last-gasp winner sent the visitors home empty-handed.

“I think we deserved it,” said Robins. “They were really good and pushed us all the way. We took control of the game early on and got a brilliant goal, great ball, great header.

“I thought Haji was brilliant all night. I think the team played really well apart from the two goals, they were really avoidable and really poor, but if we can win a game and concede those goals then fine tonight, but we will come unstuck if we can’t defend and keep clean sheets.

“It’s difficult to be critical tonight because of the way they played with the ball, the possession and everything we asked of them – they delivered.

“We were really aggressive and on the front foot for the most part. There are still elements we can improve on which are normal.

“They’re a good opponent, they’re tough and it’s really difficult playing against promoted teams.

“You’re expected to win anyway which is mad, because they’ve done so well, they play a really good brand of football and they’ve got hard-working players.

“Their tails are up and they’ve looked every inch a Championship squad.”

Oxford manager Des Buckingham admitted football was a cruel game as his side suffered their first loss back after 25 years in the English second tier.

Buckingham said: “Football is a cruel game, if anyone was trying to show a clip of what a cruel game looks like, it’s that.

“As frustrating as it is, I’ve just said to the players ‘I couldn’t be prouder of what I’ve seen over two games back in the Championship. If we stick true to that over the next 44, we’ll put ourselves in the best position to get more results’.

“It’s one thing the quality of the team Coventry have, it’s also the atmosphere that’s created here.

“I thought the atmosphere was extremely good, so to come and perform under that just shows how far we’ve come as a club in a very short space of time.

“We’ve developed the group, added depth to the group, we know we’re going to come up against teams in very different places than we are. We’ve moved far but we’ve still got a long way to go to where we want to be.”

It was Will Vaulks’ misplaced back pass that allowed Wright in to round Jamie Cumming and tap into an empty net.

Buckingham added: “He was the first I grabbed on the pitch. He’s obviously disappointed with it, but I said ‘keep your head up’.

“We’ve brought him here to be a very important part to how we play. We understand he’s going to misplace passes, tonight’s a very unfortunate time and position to do it, but he must continue to get on the ball and show what he’s showed for us in the last couple of games.”