After Rovers fell to a fourth successive league defeat, Coventry City’s late winner from substitute Haji Wright saw them beat Rovers, 1-0 at the Coventry Building Society Arena for the second consecutive season, Jon Dahl Tomasson summarised the midweek disappointment to RoversTV.
“Tonight’s performance deserved more points. We’re disappointed to lose, but I don’t think we can complain about the performance, because the boys did an excellent job. They played some good football against a good side where a draw would have been the fairest result. We created plenty of good opportunities and of course, the huge turning point in the game was our disallowed goal. Those decisions change games and those types of decisions are not going our way at the moment. Even when we went behind, the lads showed a great fighting spirit to try and get back into the game for the fans. The travelling fans were great as well, as they helped us a lot with their support and their voices.
“The disallowed goal was a strange situation. I think it was a soft decision by a referee (Jeremy Simpson) who didn’t know what to do in that moment, as did the linesman who didn’t put his flag up initially. Suddenly, after a short chat where they probably were unaware of what happened, Coventry were given a free-kick. The referee told me that the Coventry goalkeeper (Ben Wilson) had two hands on the ball, but the linesman didn’t react in that moment.
“Currently, all the key moments are not going our way. If our goal is allowed, the game becomes totally different. I think we deserved to be ahead, even without that goal by Andy (Moran) because we had a one-on-one chance with Arnór (Sigurðsson), which we should have done better with after some great build-up and then we eventually conceded. I think the players are doing a lot of good things and are developing and I believe there’s a lot to come from them.
“Their goalscorer (Haji Wright) was alert and he scored a good goal. Coventry didn’t have many chances. I know they hit our crossbar twice, but they didn’t have any huge moments in the game, if you compare our chances. I think we had the biggest chances of the game.
“If you’re going to win tight games in this division, you need to take your chances. In the end, the games are decided by what you do in each penalty area; how well you defend and whether you take your chances. I thought it was a fairly equal game and if we come away with a draw, we can say that we’ve done a good job against a good side.
“Adam (Wharton) was feeling his groin at half-time. We made some changes to rotate and give people some rest, but we all know that Adam is a really good player.
“I think Leopold (Wahlstedt) and James (Hill) did a good job on their first league starts. They both played well. It’s always difficult to start for the first time at an away game, but I thought they did well.
“Some of the boys deserved their chance to play, but of course, we have had a busy schedule, so we need to rotate a bit, to keep all the players fit and fresh, as we don’t have the biggest squad in the league.
“We go out onto the pitch aiming to win every game, just like we did against Leicester City and just like we did again tonight. We could have won both games, but we will approach Saturday’s game in London against Queens Park Rangers the exact same way; aiming for three points.”
