Mark Robins has praised his side for their excellent, entertaining attacking football after overcoming Sunderland 5-4 at the Stadium of Light, being the first side in the League to beat Sunderland on their home soil.
A game full of goals saw Coventry storm into a 3-1 lead inside 20 mins, after well-worked goals from Bright Enobakhare, Jordy Hiwula and Amadou Bakayoko.
The hosts pulled it back to 3-3 at the interval, but another display of excellent attacking football in the second-half saw a Jordan Shipley screamer and Conor Chaplin get on the scoresheet as the Sky Blues took maximum points.
Robins said: ‘’Sunderland haven’t been beaten here all season, so we came here going for the win, it was a magnificent counter-attacking game, but not just that we had excellent build-up play, quick play, individual skill, good finishing and good composure, that’s the attacking part.
"Defensively, I don’t want to talk about, but attacking wise, it was just outstanding.’’
Praising his side and the creative Enobakhare, Robins knew his side had a real chance today to capitalise on a potentially fatigued Sunderland side after their extremely busy fixture list.
He added: ‘’Enobakhare is just unbelievable, you could see today he was ready for the game, he got into a great position and opened his body and his accuracy with power and precision was fantastic.
"There was movement off the ball too from Jordy which takes defenders away to take them away, creating the avenue to Bright.
"At the end of the day, they’ve had a lot of games have an unbelievable squad, to be fair to them they’ll be feeling it at this part of the season, but again no one has won here this season apart from Coventry City and that is something, the way we played was outstanding.’’
Talking through his team’s goals, Robins had continuous praise for his attackers, who continued to break and showed real determination in their attacking football.
He added: ‘’Our second goal was good interplay, but also Luke Thomas has rolled inside brilliantly with one touch, slipped it through to Bakayoko and just finished it, it was similar to the goal at Peterborough, but it was really pleasing.
"The third goal was really pleasing think it was an exact replica of the Burton Albion goal, Jordy has played it inside, it has come off the defender and gone into the net, so a bit of luck, but again lightning quick attack and we scored.
‘’We stopped doing the things that got us to 3-1 up and dropped, their second goal was poor from our point of view, Burge came out he tried to punch it didn’t get it, and just tapped it in.
"Their third goal came on the stroke of half-time, we put the pressure on ourselves and let Charlie Wyke get in an area you don’t want him to be in and Grigg tapped it in.’’
Robins admitted the game was an entertaining one and had faith his side would come out on top and when it came to it towards the end his tactical substitutions paid off, but had praise for his whole side after the thrilling match.
He said: ‘’It was a really good entertaining game at half time, they had to keep coming out, we kept pressing forward with good numbers and Shipperz’ goal was outstanding, some great play, Baka played it across the field, hit it out of his feet and smashed it into the far corner makes it 4-3.
‘’They then come back, get another deflected goal which was disappointing, but obviously I made the changes Conor has came on, scored and he’s just shown me a text that they’re singing his name at Fratton Park, so he’s over the moon too.’’