City boss pleased with Sky Blues display but frustrated by late lapse and disallowed goal
Coventry City Mark Robins said his side need to get better at seeing games out after the Sky Blues were denied all three points by a last gasp equaliser in 1-1 draw with Portsmouth at the Ricoh Arena.
Gary McSheffrey gave City a deserved lead just before the break but Izale McLeod nabbed a late leveller in a game the Sky Blues dominated as well as having a second half goal from David McGoldrick disallowed for offside.
Robins said: "It's a bit of a choker for us because we had a perfectly good goal chalked off in the second half and also the manner in which we conceded for the equaliser.
"It's particularly galling because we played so well. I think they had one shot to our 12 in the first half and the stats were overwhelmingly in our favour.
"We knew, because of that, they would change it around at half time and they got a bit of a foothold in the game and we responded to that by dropping deeper and deeper. Despite that I thought we'd seen the game out but then we go and do something really naive for their goal.
"We allowed McLeod, who'd not really had much of an impact on the game up to that point, to get on the end of a hopeful long punt and Portsmouth will be delighted with that result but us, we're gutted and you could see that in the dressing room.
Robins added though that he does not want the result to have an adverse effect on the confidence of his side who had previously scored eight goal in consecutive league wins away at Hartlepool and Colchester.
"I don't want the players to dwell on this too much because we still have to look at the chances we created and the goal we had chalked off because it was a perfectly good one. To me David McGoldrick was a yard, if not two, onside and you can't legislate for things like that.
"But we need to see the game out and we didn't do that so it gives us some food for thought."
The City boss also singled out Pompey's debutant 'keeper Alex Cisak for praise after his string of fine first-half saves which kept the visitors in the game after Coventry totally dominated the opening 45 minutes.
"Their goalkeeper made some absolutely outstanding saves and it shows how much we dominated the game. He had a little bit less to do in the second half but when we attacked we always looked a threat. You just have to take your chances because there's always a chance you will concede."
Robins finished off by talking up goalscorer McSheffrey whose strike was his first for the club since April.
"James Bailey has lost his marker and had the foresight and vision to execute that pass and Sheff has made a great run off the shoulder of his marker and delivered a cool finish through the legs of the 'keeper.
"I've been talking to Gary about what he needs to do to be more productive for us and he's showed signs of that recently which is great for us."