Mark Robins was full of praise for his youthful side, despite the Sky Blues being held to a 1-1 draw with Forest Green at the Ricoh.
In a side that featured three debuts, and a first start for Morgan Williams, the manager was impressed with his team’s performance, as they look to progress in the Checkatrade Trophy.
“We are using this competition to get game time for players that haven’t been starting regularly and also giving the young players a taste of first team action, and we finished roughly with an u23s side,
“Jack Burroughs gets a game, Jak Hickman starts the game in the first half and works his socks off, Brandon Mason comes back into it and gets just under an hour.
After Jordy Hiwula’s early opener, his first goal for the club, City seemed to dominate proceedings in the first-half but the manager conceded that Rovers created chances as the game entered its latter stages.
“We had some decent possession, but what happened then was because they were popping the ball around, we had to just drop back and give up a little bit of ground.
“When you say that what you’re saying is just try to buy yourself a bit of time and then you can put the pressure on - but what we didn’t manage to do is the second bit. We allowed them too much time on the ball and too much of the ball.”
Despite the Sky Blues being denied a win, Robins was pleased for Hiwula, after the striker’s goal seemed to give him a new lease of confidence, as he was a constant danger to the Rovers defence.
The manager also reserved praise for debutant Jack Burroughs, alongside defensive pair Morgan Williams and Jordon Thompson.
“Hiwula gets a goal early on and his confidence is up and some of the touches he had were outstanding.
“I thought Burroughs looked good. I thought Morgan Williams at the back looked really assured and Jordon Thompson as well.”
The result means that City still could progress from their group if Arsenal u21s win their game against Forest Green and the Sky Blues win away at Cheltenham.
The manager is hoping his side can go further in the competition as he looks to continue to inject some confidence into some of the younger players within his squad..
“Forest Green are a good side, they’re unbeaten in League Two, and are a better football side than they were last season, so they’ve improved.
“It was a good game, in terms of being good experience for the younger players, and good for us in terms of using the competition for what we needed to up to now.
“If Arsenal win their next game, we’ve got a chance of going through. It was minutes into legs and trying to get a bit of confidence.”