Cifuentes Frustrated With Coventry Reverse

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Cifuentes Frustrated With Coventry Reverse

Martí Cifuentes rued our inability to build on an early lead at Coventry City as we fell to a 2-1 defeat to the Sky Blues on Saturday afternoon.

2026-01-18T09:00+00:00

by Sam Stevens

Published

18 Jan, 2026

Cifuentes Frustrated With Coventry Reverse

Martí Cifuentes rued our inability to build on an early lead at Coventry City as we fell to a 2-1 defeat to the Sky Blues on Saturday afternoon.

Sam Stevens

2026-01-18T09:00+00:00

Cifuentes Frustrated With Coventry Reverse

Martí Cifuentes rued our inability to build on an early lead at Coventry City as we fell to a 2-1 defeat to the Sky Blues on Saturday afternoon.

Sam Stevens

2026-01-18T09:00+00:00

Cifuentes Frustrated With Coventry Reverse

Martí Cifuentes rued our inability to build on an early lead at Coventry City as we fell to a 2-1 defeat to the Sky Blues on Saturday afternoon.

Sam Stevens

2026-01-18T09:00+00:00

Cifuentes Frustrated With Coventry Reverse

Martí Cifuentes rued our inability to build on an early lead at Coventry City as we fell to a 2-1 defeat to the Sky Blues on Saturday afternoon.

Sam Stevens

2026-01-18T09:00+00:00

Manager Martí Cifuentes reflects on our 2-1 loss to Coventry City
Jordan James put us in front at Coventry Building Society Arena on Saturday
Second-half goals from Ellis Simms and Haji Wright sealed the points for the hosts
Cifuentes was disappointed we couldn’t build on the early momentum

Jordan James opened the scoring just 10 minutes in, with his ninth goal of the season, but Leicester City did not add to their goals tally during a commanding first-half display at Coventry Building Society Arena.

Bobby De Cordova-Reid and Caleb Okoli were among those to threaten, but second-half goals from Ellis Simms and Haji Wright overturned the deficit for Frank Lampard’s Sky Bet Championship leaders.

Coventry’s leveller came just two minutes after the restart, with Wright finding the winner five minutes from time – two moments which Cifuentes felt were ‘avoidable’.

“It’s tough to leave the pitch with no points,” the Manager said afterwards. “Definitely, I think the first half was a very high level.

“[It was] the way we want to play, the way our fans deserve, and I think the team did really well, but we need to be clinical at a moment like this when we were dominating Coventry.

“I think that the first half was, again, an opportunity to take a bigger lead, probably score one or two more goals, according to the dominance of the chances that we got.

“At half-time, we spoke about the need to push, of being really strong because we knew that they would push. It's very frustrating to concede a goal after just a few minutes in a situation that we should cope better [in].

“We defended high and we didn't close, then we conceded a situation inside the box that we want always to squeeze, to defend forward, to block the shot, but instead we’re dropping.

“It’s frustrating that some situations, especially the two goals, are 100 per cent avoidable.”

Photo 1/22

Match imagery from Saturday's M69 Derby at Coventry Building Society Arena.

Pointing to a similar occurrence at Bristol City, when the Robins found the net quickly in the second half to come back from two down to draw 2-2, Cifuentes was frustrated his side couldn’t hold onto the lead in Coventry.

“I have full respect for Coventry and all other teams, but it's always about us,” he added. “We showed today, in the first half, that we are capable to compete, to beat any team in the league, but we need to be better at coping with certain moments of the game.

“It happened against Bristol [City] and we need to learn from this. We are a young team as well with a lot of young players, but that doesn't change the fact that we need to understand there are moments of the game.

“We missed a little bit of this clinical part in the first half and we need to be ready for different game scenarios through the minutes.

“It's really difficult to have full control over 95 minutes. Despite that, it will be always the target. It’s just situations that we need to do better with.”

With James firing home his ninth goal for the Foxes, the on-loan midfielder’s individual performances have been a positive this term. The Manager was pleased with his impact in Coventry, but wants the team as a whole to capitalise when in the ascendancy.

“JJ is important for us,” Cifuentes explained. “He has this capacity, not only his capacity to help us on the build-up game and to play in the pocket.

“But I think they exploited an area that we already spoke about in the first half of the season when we played against them, and today it was very important to attack this space, this zone behind the full-back.

“The situations came from there, and definitely JJ has the ability to attack those zones together with Abdul [Fatawu], together with Ricky (Ricardo Pereira), so it's a good performance.

“But again, what we need to do as a team is to make sure that the whole team performs at a high level, and, as I said, capitalise on the moments where we are playing well.”

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