Doug King insists the media have focused on the ‘wrong stuff’ by making a big deal of Mark Robins’ match winning celebration in front of a ball boy.
Doug King has defended his “professional” Coventry City manager Mark Robins, stating that following the team’s historic FA Cup quarterfinal triumph against Wolves, the media concentrated on the “wrong stuff.”
As City desperately attempted to get on the attack in nine dramatic minutes added for stoppages, the opposing number Gary O’Neil called the Sky Blues boss “disgusting” for celebrating in front of a ball boy who had helped waste time for the Premier League side by failing to give the ball back to Jake Bidwell for a throw-in.
Coventry achieved exactly that, turning the score around with goals in the dying minutes from Ellis Simms and Haji Wright, giving the Championship team a thrilling triumph.
The national press and media seized upon that O’Neil quote and made a big deal out of the incident, for which Robins quickly issued an apology. However, today, City owner King blamed Wolves’ own antics, specifically goalkeeper Jose Sa’s early-game “injury” and recovery, which gave O’Neil time to gather his players on the sidelines and modify his tactics after Coventry’s formation and team setup caught him off guard. As a result, Robins switched to a back four and played full-back Milan van Ewijk
King told talk SPORT, “He was busy doing a hundred million interviews after the game,” in response to a question regarding his reaction to Robins’ ball boy celebration and whether or not he discussed it with his manager. He was clearly out of time with three minutes remaining, and his frustration level was considerable since he was unable to grab the ball. But hear me out: if that’s all that everyone is thinking about, then they’re thinking about the wrong things.
“I would prefer to bring up their custodian collapsing after 12 minutes and the iPads being brought out to alter the strategy,” he continued. That’s when I had my “aha” moment when the goalie got back up, nodded to them, and carried on after they had all gone to the sidelines and tried a different set-up. To be quite honest with you, I didn’t like the way it looked.
“I won’t be dwelling on what happened. Mark is a top-tier professional manager of our team, and you are probably aware of this more than I am. He has always conducted himself admirably and professionally while I have been with him.
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