Coventry City chairman Bryan Richardson has blamed the Sky Blues players for the spineless performance against Everton that has left fans calling for Gordon Strachan’s head.

Normally witty in defeat, Strachan was left morose after a terrible first half performance that saw the Sky Blues let in three goals against a side reduced to 11 fit senior players.

Despite losing two more players through injury in the first half, Everton took the lead through Scott Gemmill, Danny Cadamarteri and Kevin Campbell.

It was the first time that the fans had lost patience with Strachan in this way since he took over in November 1996, and he refused to comment on the incident.

Midfielder Lee Carsley, who scored his first goal for the club with a penalty near the end of the game to make the final result 1-3, said:

"The fans are paying their money and if they have paid their money, they are entitled to have their say.

"Everton are a poor team and were there for the taking. Afterwards, the manager just said we have got to have a good look at ourselves, and no one has come out of the game with any credit.”

Bryan Richardson went one step further and said the overpaid average players are demanding too much money with producing the necessary performance on the Pitch.

He told the BBC:

"As chairman I face up to responsibility every day, as does Gordon. Neither of us has a problem with that because it goes with the territory.

"But players have responsibilities too. If they were in any other job in which they failed the boss and the customers, they would be out of work.

"They can't hide behind Gordon. Let them be honest about it. They have to look at their reflections and ask if they truly earned their corn against Everton."

"He cannot take all the blame. Once players cross the white line, he cannot trap the ball, do their running, tackling and scoring for them.

"It's too easy to blame Gordon. We have players earning in a week what some supporters take a year's labour to achieve. That's where football has gone crackers.

"Top players are earning fortunes and if they are doing the business, good luck to them - they deserve it.

"But average players are basing their wage demands on some kind of pro-rata parity when the truth is they are not really worth it."