Coventry City match reaction from CoventryLive as Sky Blues boss Mark Robins gives his post match reaction to today’s game against Stoke

Mark Robins was delighted with his Coventry City side’s three points and clean sheet from a “concerning” schedule of fixtures. Ellis Simms scored the only goal of the game as the Sky Blues secured a hard-fought victory at Stoke to maintain their grip in the Championship play-off places.

“It was our first clean sheet in 12 games, which was brilliant,” said the City manager, speaking after the 1-0 win at the Bet365 Stadium, during which midfielder Victor Torp picked up a calf injury that forced him off at half-time.

“After the week we have had with the travelling, when the fixtures came out we knew it was going to be a tough week. And then they moved the Millwall game closer to Plymouth, and that was even more difficult, so I have been a bit concerned about the week with such a small squad. I mean, when you look at the back of their (Stoke’s) programme they have got about ten more players than us and we both made six changes.

“But we dug in, and needed to because it wasn’t a great game and not a lot of quality on show, and the bits of quality that were on show involved Ellis Simms. I think his goal was brilliantly taken and I think he got confidence from his goal on Wednesday evening, and they are not easy because he had a lot of time to look at it and he found the back of the net well.

“It was a good move with Haji nicking the ball and then Callum released Ellis really quickly and he put it in the net with a good finish. That came on the back of the chance on the first half, which was actually three chances to score and we didn’t. They threw some bodies behind it but I don’t know how we didn’t score.

“Had that gone in we would have opened it up then but, again, you have to show concentration and it looked like a really tired performance from both teams because of the amount of games that we have got. They are a good team but just lacking in confidence, that’s for sure. They play backwards too often and that invites teams on.”

He added: “They fought and closed us down quickly and fortunately we were able to keep their chances to a minimum but I thought we defended a lot better today. I thought Bobby was outstanding and Binksy did really well. Jay Dasilva and with Joel in the first half and Milan in the second, we just kept them at bay. We made some decisions that opened us a little bit but we got away with it and defended when we needed to.