Coventry City’s 2023/24 Championship campaign will be remembered for many things, with Sunday’s ‘oh so close’ FA Cup semi-final at Wembley living long in the memory of the fans.
The agonising outcome after the Sky Blues had gone within a whisker of what many agree would have been the greatest comeback in the history of the competition perhaps symbolises Mark Robins’ nearly men over the last thrilling 12 months at the club.
Following that, City was able to draw players of a higher calibre who were eager and willing to join at the CBS Arena. These players have developed over the season to put the Sky Blues back on the map of fans’ minds.
The incredible comeback against Wolves in the quarterfinals and their near-horrific defeat of Manchester United at the national stadium will have been watched by a larger football fan base. There will be players out there who are eager to participate in it from now on.
Beyond the post-match letdown from Sunday’s match, Robins focused on the positive impact his players’ play will have in the upcoming months as the manager will have the chance to bolster and improve his exciting team even more during the summer transfer window.
“It’s fantastic for the team because, hopefully, it comes to light when you’re trying to recruit and kick on,” he remarked. “We won’t feel sorry for ourselves because the club has been in the dumps for a very long time and we’re definitely out of that phase and have to keep moving it forwards. That is not going to happen.
“We’ll just try to move past it and move on to an exciting conclusion to this season.”
One of the reasons City have come up short in the league is, without doubt, trying to get through such a busy season with such a small squad – losing key players like Ben Sheaf for several weeks; the attacking thrust of Tatsuhiro Sakamoto for the last three months of the campaign; the effervescent energy of Jamie Allen and inability to add attacking reinforcements in January as Ephron Mason-Clark was signed on the condition that he was immediately loaned back to Peterborough.
