City midfielder glad to be back from injury but disppointed with cup defeat to Spurs
Conor Thomas felt there were positives to be taken from the FA Cup defeat to Spurs – but regretted that City couldn’t repay the fans for their unwavering support.
Thomas came on in a second half where the Sky Blues held Tottenham after conceding three first half goals.
Despite the disappointment of the result the midfielder was pleased to get some more playing time and step up his recovery from injury.
And he showed he is more than ready to come back into the side when he helped to set up what would have been a deserved consolation goal only for it to be ruled out for offside.
“There are definitely some positives we can take and I think the team they put out showed what they thought of us and that they didn’t want to take any chances,” he said.
“We are just disappointed because we wanted to give something back to the fans, who were great today.
“Fingers crossed we can keep our other cup run going on Thursday against Preston in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy and give the fans another day out.
“I haven’t seen the disallowed goal back,” he added. “I didn’t think I was offside but it is hard to say when it happens so quickly. I thought the assistant referee could have given us that one!"
City’s second half display was much-improved from a first half performance that allowed two goals from Clint Dempsey and one from Gareth Bale to wrap up the tie.
And as Thomas pointed out, facing Premier League opposition presents a very different challenge and one that the Sky Blues reacted to after the break.
Thomas said: “We did okay in the second half when we were much better. We didn’t show them as much respect and obviously had the goal disallowed.
“They have a lot of the ball so you have to do a lot more running and they are very good on the ball so you can’t dive in too much but then again you can’t show them too much respect.
“The lads worked really hard today and when they keep the ball for such a long time it’s going to take its toll.
“We had nothing to lose but unfortunately we couldn’t cause an upset today."