Mark Robins post match statement.

Norfolkred1

Norfolkred1

Well-known member
Mark Robins said his Coventry City side needed a fantastic performance to beat Middlesbrough and book their place in the Wembley play-off final, but in summing up the game after, he highlighted where it had gone wrong for Michael Carrick's side.

The two sides were ultimately separated by just one goal after two legs in the Championship play-off semi-final. Gustavo Hamer's excellent finish set the Sky Blues on their way to the national stadium, where they will meet Luton Town for promotion to the Premier League.

As for Boro, the reflecting and the planning starts now, as they look to analyse what went wrong in the play-offs, what went right to get to that point in the first place, and most importantly, what they need to do in the future to ensure they can compete again next year.

READ MORE: Michael Carrick's pride despite the disappointment of play-off heartbreak for Middlesbrough

In terms of summing up where it went wrong for Boro on the night, Robins' post-match analysis was a fair summary. He said: “It had to be [a fantastic performance] because we were playing against a top, top team. I think that is the longest game of my career and it didn’t even go to extra time.

"It just shows you the quality of the opponent, and to beat them over the two legs, with two clean sheets, it’s a testament to the boys. You could tell how much they wanted it, but you could also tell how much Middlesbrough wanted it. The atmosphere was phenomenal, and we had to deal with that as well, which I thought we did pretty well.
 
Norfolkred1 said:
Mark Robins said his Coventry City side needed a fantastic performance to beat Middlesbrough and book their place in the Wembley play-off final, but in summing up the game after, he highlighted where it had gone wrong for Michael Carrick's side.

The two sides were ultimately separated by just one goal after two legs in the Championship play-off semi-final. Gustavo Hamer's excellent finish set the Sky Blues on their way to the national stadium, where they will meet Luton Town for promotion to the Premier League.

As for Boro, the reflecting and the planning starts now, as they look to analyse what went wrong in the play-offs, what went right to get to that point in the first place, and most importantly, what they need to do in the future to ensure they can compete again next year.

READ MORE: Michael Carrick's pride despite the disappointment of play-off heartbreak for Middlesbrough

In terms of summing up where it went wrong for Boro on the night, Robins' post-match analysis was a fair summary. He said: “It had to be [a fantastic performance] because we were playing against a top, top team. I think that is the longest game of my career and it didn’t even go to extra time.

"It just shows you the quality of the opponent, and to beat them over the two legs, with two clean sheets, it’s a testament to the boys. You could tell how much they wanted it, but you could also tell how much Middlesbrough wanted it. The atmosphere was phenomenal, and we had to deal with that as well, which I thought we did pretty well.
Click to expand...
That doesn't sum up where it went wrong for us.

Where it went wrong for us is they had Gyokeres, so could put 9 behind the ball and we couldn't break that down with our available options.

They didn't play particularly well, not in any of the games, but they didn't have to, as tactically they're set up to be a complete nightmare for a team like us. They did however stick to that tactic extremely well, so credit their players for that.

Robins deserves all the credit, for making the most of a prize asset, fair play to him.
 
Andy_W said:
That doesn't sum up where it went wrong for us.

Where it went wrong for us is they had Gyokeres, so could put 9 behind the ball and we couldn't break that down with our available options.

They didn't play particularly well, not in any of the games, but they didn't have to, as tactically they're set up to be a complete nightmare for a team like us. They did however stick to that tactic extremely well, so credit their players for that.

Robins deserves all the credit, for making the most of a prize asset, fair play to him.
Click to expand...
They also bullied, fouled, niggled and time wasted and the ref didn't seem too interested in stopping them doing it till late on.
 
Andy_W said:
That doesn't sum up where it went wrong for us.

Where it went wrong for us is they had Gyokeres, so could put 9 behind the ball and we couldn't break that down with our available options.

They didn't play particularly well, not in any of the games, but they didn't have to, as tactically they're set up to be a complete nightmare for a team like us. They did however stick to that tactic extremely well, so credit their players for that.

Robins deserves all the credit, for making the most of a prize asset, fair play to him.
Click to expand...
They didn't play particularly well, not in any of the games, but they didn't have to, as tactically they're set up to be a complete nightmare for a team like us. They did however stick to that tactic extremely well, so credit their players for that.

Spot on
 
Andy_W said:
That doesn't sum up where it went wrong for us.

Where it went wrong for us is they had Gyokeres, so could put 9 behind the ball and we couldn't break that down with our available options.

They didn't play particularly well, not in any of the games, but they didn't have to, as tactically they're set up to be a complete nightmare for a team like us. They did however stick to that tactic extremely well, so credit their players for that.

Robins deserves all the credit, for making the most of a prize asset, fair play to him.
Click to expand...
They did play particularly well though, that's how they nullified us. Defending is as important as attacking and over the two games we've had 3 shots on target.
 
Andy_W said:
That doesn't sum up where it went wrong for us.

Where it went wrong for us is they had Gyokeres, so could put 9 behind the ball and we couldn't break that down with our available options.

They didn't play particularly well, not in any of the games, but they didn't have to, as tactically they're set up to be a complete nightmare for a team like us. They did however stick to that tactic extremely well, so credit their players for that.

Robins deserves all the credit, for making the most of a prize asset, fair play to him.
Click to expand...
We rarely changed format even after playing them twice recently, obviously something they worked on. At one point I saw three on Akpom who had no chance with that ratio. There is a second part to the interview but says little about our failings on the night, but that's Teesside live for you.

Qoute:

"We settled okay, started to find a rhythm and once we were calm and moved the ball we opened up some avenues for ourselves to create chances, which is something we didn’t do in the first game. We just knew if we could be calm we would create some chances against them, and thankfully we did.

"All the way through, goalkeeper to attack, we did really well. We kept them to a minimum. Thankfully, some of their quality from out wide was lacking tonight, which was unusual. That maybe comes down to the magnitude of the game.

"Our supporters deserved that - from the start of the season to now, it’s been incredible. From when we played Middlesbrough the first time around… I feel a lot better now that’s for sure!”

The tie was ultimately settled by one special finish from 25-year-old Hamer. The Brazilian had actually been a doubt for the game after taking a whack to his knee in the first leg on Sunday. But he had an injection before the Riverside clash and ended up producing the moment of magic.

“Gustavo was brilliant," Robins reflected. "He had to have a big injection in his knee to even play the game after the first leg and I thought he was going to faint getting it!

"When Vik runs through and he takes it past the goalkeeper and it falls to Gustavo, it was just a feeling of breathe out because he does that thing every day. To see it hit the back of the net was special.

"Then the onslaught inevitably came and we had to defend well to see the game out. They threw everything they could at us but we managed to see it out. A clean sheet is phenomenal, especially here, phenomenal.”
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
They did play particularly well though, that's how they nullified us. Defending is as important as attacking and over the two games we've had 3 shots on target.
Click to expand...
It's not really playing, not how I think of it, none of them were that great on the ball etc, making key tackles, key chances, key saves etc, it's just being well-organised on the pitch but how they set up makes that an extremely easy defending starting point for them. They didn't make any major defensive mistakes, but even if/ when they do they will be well coverd in numbers, so thtey matter less anyway.

It's always easy for a 9 v 7, or should be at least.
 
Gus Hamer Brazilian? I thought he was native chav in the first game. I lipread him, and in perfect chavlish, he said something along the lines of ‘F***ing Hell ref, are you taking the ****?’

I chuckled at that.
 
Norfolkred1 said:
We rarely changed format even after playing them twice recently, obviously something they worked on. At one point I saw three on Akpom who had no chance with that ratio. There is a second part to the interview but says little about our failings on the night, but that's Teesside live for you.

Qoute:

"We settled okay, started to find a rhythm and once we were calm and moved the ball we opened up some avenues for ourselves to create chances, which is something we didn’t do in the first game. We just knew if we could be calm we would create some chances against them, and thankfully we did.

"All the way through, goalkeeper to attack, we did really well. We kept them to a minimum. Thankfully, some of their quality from out wide was lacking tonight, which was unusual. That maybe comes down to the magnitude of the game.

"Our supporters deserved that - from the start of the season to now, it’s been incredible. From when we played Middlesbrough the first time around… I feel a lot better now that’s for sure!”

The tie was ultimately settled by one special finish from 25-year-old Hamer. The Brazilian had actually been a doubt for the game after taking a whack to his knee in the first leg on Sunday. But he had an injection before the Riverside clash and ended up producing the moment of magic.

“Gustavo was brilliant," Robins reflected. "He had to have a big injection in his knee to even play the game after the first leg and I thought he was going to faint getting it!

"When Vik runs through and he takes it past the goalkeeper and it falls to Gustavo, it was just a feeling of breathe out because he does that thing every day. To see it hit the back of the net was special.

"Then the onslaught inevitably came and we had to defend well to see the game out. They threw everything they could at us but we managed to see it out. A clean sheet is phenomenal, especially here, phenomenal.”
Click to expand...
The only way we could change is to go to a system which the team are not geared up for, it's just one of them things, we could have quite easily nicked the goal they did.

Had we tried a different game it could have been even harder, but having a few injuries and player changes recently really haven't helped us, and it hurt the form.
 
Tiny margins sometimes, Chuba's shot is a couple of inches lower it goes in rather than hits the bar, Jones starts his run a fraction of a second later he's onside and his goal counts. Then I think we'd have won.

Tactically it wasn't just them putting men behind the ball, the decision to play Allen instead of the other striker Godden meant they had four central midfielders to nullify our threat in the middle. If we got past that their three CBs stopped everything by fair means or foul

They were better than us last night though, and Robins has done an incredible job for them and I hope they beat Luton.
 
Mickey_2003 said:
Gus Hamer Brazilian? I thought he was native chav in the first game. I lipread him, and in perfect chavlish, he said something along the lines of ‘F***ing Hell ref, are you taking the ****?’

I chuckled at that.
Click to expand...
Born in Brazil, probably never kicked a ball there as he went to Holland when he was two I think.
 
The Card Cheat said:
Tiny margins sometimes, Chuba's shot is a couple of inches lower it goes in rather than hits the bar, Jones starts his run a fraction of a second later he's onside and his goal counts. Then I think we'd have won.

Tactically it wasn't just them putting men behind the ball, the decision to play Allen instead of the other striker Godden meant they had four central midfielders to nullify our threat in the middle. If we got past that their three CBs stopped everything by fair means or foul

They were better than us last night though, and Robins has done an incredible job for them and I hope they beat Luton.
Click to expand...
Yeah I noticed that when I saw Godden missing and thought "this could be a frustrating night if we don't get an early goal".
 
I thought we were too static and didnt have enough bodies in the box when attacking. Was too easy for then. Once they scored that was it. We didnt look like scoring all game
 
UTB70 said:
I thought we were too static and didnt have enough bodies in the box when attacking. Was too easy for then. Once they scored that was it. We didnt look like scoring all game
Click to expand...
Front men definitely too static and quality of the crossing poor. It's down to the pressure.
 
We were a bit nervous, especially Archer who snatched/rushed the half chances he had. However credit Coventry, they did a number on us. Add in the mistakes we made, it was never going to be easy. Not sure what more we could have done, it was one of those nights! You could sort of see what game it was likely to be after the first 10/15 minutes. We had already started making the odd mistake and you could feel/see a bit of tension in our play. Bitter pill to swallow, but hopefully a good break and raring to go again next season.
 
Think it's quite telling that even he was surprised by how ineffectual we were on the wings compared to normal.
 
We continued to try and play pretty football, pass, pass, pass with lots of possession but wasn’t getting us anywhere but we carried on the same regardless.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top