Sky Blues Under-23s Head Coach, Luke Tisdale told of his disappointment as City were knocked out of the Birmingham Senior Cup.
City suffered a 3-0 defeat away at Nuneaton Borough in the Second Round of the competition earlier this week at Liberty Way.
Reflecting on the performance after the game, Tisdale gave credit to the performance of Nuneaton and reflected on the display from his side.
He said: “First of all we’ve got to give great credit to Nuneaton, they did the basics of the game a lot better than we did, worked harder than us, their shape was better than us and like I said they did the basics a lot better than we did so all credit to them really.
“We were disappointing from set-pieces, it’s a basic of the game regardless of who you’re playing or what level it is.
“The ball comes in to the penalty area you have to be prepared to head it and put your body on the line, when the ball drops in the penalty area you have to be prepared to clear your box and not overplay and the way we gave the corners away themselves was very disappointing, we caused our own problems really.”
A young Sky Blues side, which fielded a majority of Under-23 players, gave the squad a different environment compared to their PDL (Professional Development League) games.
Tisdale admitted it makes a big difference playing against Non-League sides instead of different academies, but the players still should have performed better.
“Incredibly different, and the under 23s games are great because they give you different challenges and equally these are very good for the same reason because you get a difference, you’re forced to compete, you’re forced to defend set pieces properly.
“You’re forced to run harder than you’re opponents and when you don’t do those things that’s the outcome that you get and its been a really harsh lesson for some players in there and they’ve been told a few home truths about it as well.
“We spoke at half time about playing forwards and trying to get through their lines to hurt them but we didn’t do that and when we did create a chance we didn’t hit the target or work the goalkeeper anywhere near enough so we’ve got no complaints really.”
The game also saw midfielder Jamie Allen continue his return from injury as he played 60 minutes at Liberty Way.
Tisdale said it was a ‘big positive’ to see the re-emergence of Allen and his return will be a big plus for the first team moving forward in the coming weeks.
“It was great for Jamie and you can see his quality, he was the best player on the pitch for the first hour, covers ground really well."