Coventry fans fume as Millwall player Joe Bryan goes unpunished when elbowing Sakamoto in the head during Sunday afternoon’s game.
A video has been posted with viewers left reeling having seen Sakamoto struck in the face with an elbow, promoting supporters to call upon the FA to thoroughly investigate the matter and take action.
This comes following to a series of on-field incidents to have taken place recently, with the Japanese player has been facing a tough time of it lately, particularly during the match against Norwich last weekend when Marcelino Nunez took him out, leading manager Mark Robins to accuse Norwich of employing tactics to deliberately sideline Sakamoto.
Additionally, in the midweek FA Cup clash against Sheffield Wednesday, Jamie Allen suffered a fractured cheekbone after a clash with Di’Shon Bernard. See more on that HERE.
Did anyone see this on Sakamoto ? #PUSB pic.twitter.com/PErSq5WAw0
— Luke Spud 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷 (@spud8550) February 11, 2024
Slow motion edit of the assault on Sakamoto earlier. Shocking.
And you just know the Millwall player will likely get away it.#PUSB #CoventryCity pic.twitter.com/4iJtJ4vqyK— Chris Coleman (@chrisseventeen) February 11, 2024
The game itself saw Haji Wright score twice inside three minutes to complete a Sky Blues’ comeback after Romain Esse put Millwall ahead after 12 minutes.
Haji Wright struck the post twice just 5 minutes in, before 18-year-old Romain Esse netted shortly after, on what was only his second league start of the season.
Torp’s free-kick was pushed onto the bar 20 minutes in as Coventry continued to push for an equaliser.
Luck looked to be going against them when Kasey Palmer saw his headed effort pushed off the line by a Millwall head just before the break.
Wright did manage to win a penalty and made no mistake from it, and then completed Coventry’s quick turnaround straight after.
Coventry went on the break from the back, with O’Hare slotted Haji in and he beat the goalkeeper with a cheeky strike to the near post.
Coventry boss Mark Robins said to the club website on taking a chance early on to change the game: “We had to work hard for that today. We weren’t brilliant to start with, but we had a really good chance to take the lead, but Haji has hit the post, but before that Tatsu has a chance to score as well, but the ‘keeper made a decent save, but if we’re ruthless we take the lead and things may alter.”
Reflecting on the first half, he said: “They make it really difficult for you and they condense the space and come at you with aggression and aggressive movements, and we found it really difficult because we didn’t get on and off the ball quick enough.
“We want to play quickly and if they stop the avenues of passing and they condense all the space and put bodies in positions where they can go after you, and we have to move the ball quickly and be accurate and be good with our first touch.
“We have a way of playing which is exciting, but you have to be secure with it and move with it and play forwards, but we didn’t do it quickly enough and we were labour on it.
“The forward players in the first hour were probably a victim of that and we couldn’t get them on the ball, which means they had more encouragement to come after it and when they do that there’s more space in behind and we didn’t execute that well enough or quickly enough until we did at times get through it and when we did get through it we looked dangerous, but we could have been out of game by then, we could have conceded a couple of goals, but we kept going and we kept playing.”
On making changes and getting back into the game: “The changes made a difference in the end because it gave them a different threat. We looked different and we managed to find spaces and find goal scoring chances to shoot and that meant Haji got in a good position in the penalty area and he gets brought down for a stonewall penalty.
“I think there was some rock, paper, scissors which isn’t ideal, but it doesn’t matter because the ball hits the back of the net.
“When you have two players that want to score and take it and are confident in doing it then fine, I’m not going to micro-manage it, they’ve handled it well and Haji has taken penalties regularly in Turkey and we can see what he’s capable of and that was a really good penalty.”
On the second goal to win the game: “We are on the front foot then and we go after the game and then Bobby Thomas plays a brilliant pass through their press into Callum, and he turns and runs with it and he picks out Haji and he finishes it and it turns out to be the winner.
“He had chances to have maybe had a hat-trick and Victor has had a chance which has taken a deflection just over the bar.
“We looked more of a threat, and we defended well enough to see the game out and we handled it really well.”
The manager on another win at the @CBSArena. 🩵
— Coventry City (@Coventry_City) February 11, 2024
Haji Wright said also to the club’s media: “It was a good performance from the second half. We showed our quality.
“It was a difficult game, they did not make it easy for us, but we showed our quality in the later stages of the game, and we take the three points with us.”
On the first half: “We know we have the quality, and we should win the game. We wanted to win the game, but it was difficult for us going behind so early.
“After they scored, they kind of locked in, defensively, and tried to stop our game. Good for us, they tried out and we took advantage of that.
“We were able to show our quality. We have a lot of players in the team who can drive with the ball and create space for them and for others, which is good for us.”
On their threat: “They made it really hard for us. They came out and their physicality was present, for the whole game. It was hard for us to cope with that, and they got their goal.
“They had a big threat from set pieces and corners. They tried taking advantage of that, going long with throw ins and corners. They have some players who are very good in the air, and it made it difficult for us.
“It was hard, but we showed our quality.”
On team talk at half-time: “The Gaffer said there was a lot of good stuff but also a few bad points we needed to work on, to improve our game and get away with the win.
“He told us to keep going, to stay calm on the ball and attack the spaces when they were open.”
On the penalty: “So, I won the penalty and me and Callum had a quick discussion about who was going to take it.
“We had a game of rock-paper-scissors.
“I know Callum is amazing at taking penalties, he has that little stutter step, and he will probably score 90 percent of the time, but I am confident myself, so I wanted to take it.
“Luckily, I won the game of rock-paper-scissors. I went for rock! I had a little delay in my throw, but it is what it is.
“We are both hungry players. We want to succeed; we want to show our quality on the pitch, and it was good to score and help the team.”
On his second goal: “Callum is a great player. You can see for the assist he dribbled past two players and ran 50 yards with the ball, he laid off the perfect pass for me and it was a good shot, luckily it went in.
“Usually when you open your body and shape up, like you are going (to shoot) far post, the keepers’ kind of cheat a little bit. So, I was hoping for that and it is what he did.”
On the team now pushing forward up the table: “In the early stages it was difficult for us to gel together, new players and players who stayed on from last season.
“We are starting to gel, we have a really good team, good quality in every position so we are all fighting to get on the pitch.”
Rock was the play. Nicely done, Haj. 🪨
— Coventry City (@Coventry_City) February 11, 2024
Millwall’s Joe Edwards said when questioned if his team had a psychological problem after taking the lead, per www.southwarknews.co.uk: “I’m not sure if it’s in the back of their minds as soon as we go 1-0 up because if you look at the goal today, we got the goal and then we went again. So it’s not an effect psychologically where we score the first goal and then try and shut up shop and we do it too early and get it wrong, it’s not really that.
“I can only say there’s a mentality issue around it because it’s the mistakes. If you look at the manner of their two goals, the two standout things about the goals that decided the game are that they are littered with mistakes. It’s a sloppy tackle that gives the penalty away in the box. That’s always going to be the challenge against Coventry – they’re so good one v one and two v one around the box – that you have to be on it defensively.
“We got caught wrong side and we make a foul, so that’s an error. But then the fact that we follow it up so soon after with some positional issues and then even the finish. The finish isn’t a great finish and it ends up in the back of our net. So to make a culmination of mistakes in such a short period of time, that’s where we’re kind of saying: ‘lads, we need to do more than that.’
“All we can do is keep addressing it and we do. We look at stats from those moments. We had it our game against Preston. After they scored, between there and half-time we couldn’t get anywhere near the game so we started looking at all the data and breaking it down and working out what happened and what changed. We work on it time and time again but at the moment we just can’t put it into practice in the games.”
💬 Joe Edwards following #Millwall‘s loss on the road. pic.twitter.com/cGCS99TqQF
— Millwall FC (@MillwallFC) February 11, 2024
As mentioned, Coventry fans and those of other club fume as the Millwall player Joe Bryan goes unpunished when elbowing Sakamoto in the head…
@fredjrex: The FA can deal with this one as a foul wasn’t given. They couldn’t with the other as a foul was given. Strange rules.
@robknowles90: Deliberate and cowardly. The ball was long gone. Retrospective punishment required, same for the Allen incident in the last game. Suspect nothing will happen though… #PUSB
@Kaytea21: Hiya @Specsavers Would you mind reaching out to the refs in the championship please? Two games in a row I’ve watched players get elbowed in the face after no longer having the ball but yet the officials play blind to the incidents. Yours sincerely, A believer
@simontodd89: Twice in a week, your officials are a disgrace! @EFL @FA_PGMOL @FA
@covkid82: That’s fuckin awful. I’m all for a bit of the physical side to it or an arm out to block but that’s a blatant elbow that
@SkyBlueFeta: When players in The Championship are getting away with incidents like this, I start to think that VAR is needed, as much as I can’t stand it, he would 100% have seen red for this!
@JosephO__: It’s not like Coventry fans to moan. Christ i can’t until they bottle promotion, again
@adam7485: Everyone hates em apparently
@toughy92: Will be ignored again by @FAspokesperson like Di’Shon Bernard’s was last week. But you can guarantee though if a player had the wrong colour base layer on and the ref missed it he’d get a 5 game ban 😂 #PUSB
@Llewcalon: Hey @FA_PGMOL, @FA & @EFL, do you think this is acceptable? Player gets elbowed in the face, in front of the linesman, and nothing is done! Ref waves it away and the Linesman laughed at the fans who pointed it out. Two of our player assaulted in a week! Sort it out!
@SkyBlueCrampy: Shocking and lucky it’s not another fractured cheekbone in the space of a week… sort it out @FAspokesperson 😡 #PUSB @Coventry_City
@Gurnery_: There’s too much conversation around protecting referees when they don’t do their job of protecting players.
@MightyMillers20: Ohhh that’s nasty
@ccfcfan: Terrible.. if any of the match officials saw this, it’s a straight Red Card all day #pusb
@AshbyJan: Millwall targeted Tats and COH continually fouling, leaving a foot in and culminating in this. FA needs to take action as its simple thuggery
@KellySarahDavis: Think everyone saw it apart from the ref and his assistant 🤦🏻♀️😩
@skybluejacko: Is that not a red card id like to see a city player get away with a challenge like that #pusb
@skyblueloyalist: It was right in front of me and I was going absolutely mental ref was an absolute joke today
@carmicooli1: 100% intentional – looks what happened to Jamie Allen in the last game 😡
@SkyBlueJames: Shocking again, straight red
@TimG30410796: Right in front of us and the linesman who did naff all. Red card all day long another assault unpunished. This time hope fa look into it as ref didn’t call the foul.
@sky_blue_sara: @EFL I’m pretty sure he would end up with a criminal record if it were done anywhere but on the pitch. Disgrace.
@Yvonne70skyblue: Yeh we called the Lino on it and he laughed !! I’m in block 22 and right in line with it looks like that’s us targeted by all and sundry now !!
@Llewcalon: I saw Tats go down, and then Lati went over and spoke to the Ref about it and motioned with his elbow. Ref had just given Millwall a free kick, and he waved Tats away and wouldn’t listen to him. #PUSB
@RobOMalley8: EFL will say it’s fine
@JakeRuss1000: Twice in a week, when will something get done about this. EFL will probably say its perfectly OK. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
@bavpanchal: They’ve reviewed it and given Matty Godden a two game ban for diving. #PUSB
@theboygonemad: @EFL this is every week now. The linesman is looking directly at this. Sort it out FFS #PUSB
@MercianCRoW: 2nd elbow in a week for one of our players gone unpunished
@FplShakenbake: Sat in block 23, you could hear him scream when he got hit

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