Under 23's Coach Nicky Eaden gives his assessment of the Sky Blues' performance...
City's development side secured their first victory in three games, defeating Nottingham Forest at the Ricoh Arena.
After a 2-2 draw against Bolton Wanderers in their previous fixture, the Ricoh played host against Forest, with Charles Vernam scoring the only goal of the game to hand Nicky Eaden's side the three points.
“It was a game of two halves really, first half was poor and we looked lethargic. It may have been the after effects of yesterday, but it was real basic stuff. We worked hard, but it wasn’t enough," Nicky Eaden said.
“I told them at half time we needed more forward runs, better pressing and all of a sudden they looked like they had some energy. We started getting forward more and creating a few chances.
“Clean sheet was pleasing, Corey has done really well to pull a couple of saves off and the back four has looked pretty solid. They’ve dealt with most that was thrown at them, because Forest had some good movement and decent players on show.”
Having been ineligible for the Sky Blues' Checkatrade Trophy victory yesterday, Vernam played 75 minutes for the development side. The striker scored the only goal, but was later substituted with an apparent injury.
“Charles needed a game. That’s the thing sometimes, when you’ve got players who are squad players for the first team, they end up being caught in-between both squads and not playing for the Under-23s.
“It’s match minutes really that they need to top up. To be fair to Charles, he came to me and said he needed some game time. There is no amount of training or preparation that is the same as actually playing some minutes.
He added: “He pulled up and felt something in his knee, so we’ll know more about that in the coming days, but hopefully he’ll have just tweaked something and it is nothing serious.”