Coventry boss accuses Sunderland of 'going down easily' and 'banging up' his player

Coventry manager Mark Robins has accused Sunderland of ‘going down a bit easy’ and making the game a difficult one for the referee.

Tony Mowbray's side were beaten 2-1 at the CBS Arena, although there were plenty of complaints about the standard of refereeing on the day.

Sunderland felt there were three fouls and two handballs in the build-up to Coventry’s first goal, but Robins felt it was the Wearsiders who were getting preferential treatment from the officials.

"I think it was a difficult game to manage from the referee's perspective,” Robins said.

"There were a lot of talented players who were comfortable on the ball and can go by you in the blink of an eye. They can drift across and triple up on the side and come back inside and beat you and open things up, and if you allow that to happen they are really dangerous, and you saw that all game.

"They [Sunderland] were banging Viktor [Gyokeres] from behind and they are fouls that weren’t given, but they are normally given every week. It was just a different game because they glide.

“We have defended pretty well but if we touched them they went down, went down a bit easy if I am honest.

"Were they fouls? I don’t think so. But they give as good as they get and although they aren't the biggest side in the division they are really strong who will put their bodies in to roll you out of the way to try to create space for themselves."

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