The Sky Blues have been knocked-out of the Carabao Cup after a 3-1 defeat to Blackburn Rovers at the Ricoh Arena...
Mark Robins’ young side fell behind early on but did find a way back into the game through Duckens Nazon, but his goal was not enough to avoid elimination.
“Blackburn are a decent side,” said Robins.
“We know that Tony Mowbray likes to play on the floor and it was something that I wanted to expose Biamou and Nazon to because they need to learn to how to work that way and make sure that we can try and stop teams from playing. They were decent at it.
“After they took the lead we had to work really hard to get back into it, which we did through what was a fairly well taken goal after it bounced back off the goalkeeper.
“We then had a period of play where we were toe-to-toe with them before we gave a silly goal away. We surrendered possession in a poor area and they punished us for it.
“If I am honest, we gave the ball away twice in dangerous area and struggled to get back in. We exposed our weaknesses.
“I think they stretched us a little too often but that was just a cast of us being naïve.
“They were clever. They are as good as championship players and we have to take a step back and look at that.
Notts County came to the Ricoh on Saturday looking to exploit their aerial exploits but today’s opponents came looking to keep the ball on the ground and stretch the Sky Blues.
“Today was a different challenge. From our point of view, you want to try and get the tempo higher so you have to press the top, and that is something that we have got to work on with them.
“We will do plenty of work on trying to put the pressure on the opposition lads at the back because if you do not do that, in a 3-4-3 formation, the wide men will exploit and hurt you.
“We made some changes to the team tonight and I think it was a good game to blood one or two of the younger players because we are going to need them later in the season and the only way to get them ready is to give them a chance.”
He added: “There are plenty of positives to take away from today.
“We can see now what we need to work on. Whilst it was a competitive game and we would like to go through to the second round, those changes were enforced in a certain area but it gave us an opportunity to give the younger players some experience.”