John Eustace, who suffered the worst day of his playing career when Coventry City were relegated from the Premier League in 2001, is thrilled that the club he joined as a trainee are on the brink of regaining their top-flight status.
The Derby County boss was frustrated to see his side edged out in a Championship thriller for the second time this season, last night’s 3-2 defeat at the CBS Arena following on from August’s 5-3 reverse at Pride Park to leave the Rams four points shy of the Championships play-off places.
But, asked if he was pleased to see the Sky Blues so close to ending their quarter-century exile he insisted: “One hundred per-cent – it’s a fantastic football club.
“I was here for seven years, I captained the club and I played in the season they got relegated which was terrible. To see them drop down the leagues, go through administration and all that kind of stuff and see them where they are now is a fantastic story and I’m delighted they’ll be back in the Premier League where they belong.”
Substitute Jack Rudoni’s double tipped the scales last night after Derby had twice hauled themselves level and Eustace has no doubt that the Sky Blues’s depth of game-changing talent is the key factor in their front-running form.
“Of course it is! Blooming hell, they’ve got a fantastic squad of players, quality all over the pitch, and there’s been a lot of hard work to get to that. It hasn’t just happened overnight – that squad’s been together for a long time and they’ve built over the last four or five seasons.
“This is the kind of club we want to emulate. It’s important we build our team properly –we’ve got a good core of players now and we want to keep as many of those as we can and add to them next year.”
Eustace’s Coventry career was blighted by injuries and he has seen Derby’s promotion ambitions hit by some key absentees this term, but he was proud of their efforts against Frank Lampard’s rampant leaders.
“I’m really disappointed to lose. I thought we were excellent tonight and I’m very very proud of the efforts of the group. We had a couple missing and we could easily have felt sorry for ourselves but I think it shows how all season whenever we’ve had any injuries or setbacks, we’ve stepped up and performed very well. Tonight was no different – to come to the best team in the league for sure and perform how we did was very pleasing.
“The group are brilliant and I can’t fault their character, but we just lack that little bit of know-how and quality to see games out at important times and that has cost us throughout the season. We’ve dropped some vital points and that’s something we’ve got to learn from and keep improving.
“We started the game well but conceded a really sloppy goal. We grew into the game and I thought we played some fantastic football. We got into a really good Coventry team and stopped them playing and we came in at half-time really confident. We knew that Coventry would come out stronger second half because they’ve got a great squad of players and can make changes but we saw out a lot of pressure before we conceded another sloppy goal.
“We again showed great character to equalise and I felt we could go on and win the game but to concede so quickly after that was really disappointing. We just didn’t track the runner into the box.”
Coventry were furious with referee Tom Nield, who awarded a penalty against Carl Rushworth for a phantom foul on Ben Brereton Diaz before letting Patrick Agyemang escape with a yellow card for a gruesome challenge on Bobby Thomas.
Eustace didn’t got into the details, but he clearly had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he joked: “I thought he was excellent the referee – best game he’s had in his career!”
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