Liam Kelly believes the Sky Blues have to “respond” quickly after suffering their first league defeat of the season against Rotherham United.
City lost for the first time in Sky Bet League One on Saturday afternoon, but have an immediate chance to respond when they face Forest Green Rovers in the Leasing.com Trophy on Tuesday night.
The skipper admitted it was a bad day at the office for City in South Yorkshire and that all the players must hold their hands up for the performance.
Kelly said: “It was a bad day at the office. Every single player, including myself, has to hold their hands up and say it wasn’t good enough today.
“I think it would have been naïve to think over the course of a season we’ll go unbeaten and the run had to come to an end at some point.
“It’s really disappointing in the fashion that it happened. We really shot ourselves in the foot today, we’ve not competed enough and made a lot of errors that led to goalscoring opportunities.
“The good thing is, we’ve got Tuesday night to come and bounce back, get a result there and move on in the league. The big thing is how we respond and how we react to this.
“This defeat doesn’t take anything away from how good that form has been and how well we have done, but Saturday wasn’t good enough and we need to improve.”
Kelly is determined to put things right with City taking on Tranmere Rovers in the league next Sunday and stressed the importance of properly preparing for their upcoming fixtures.
“No one is going out there to make a mistake, unfortunately it’s football and these things happen. We’re hurt in the dressing room, we’re not happy with how we’ve performed as a team.
“We’re going to have to respond on Tuesday and put things right on Sunday in the league as well.
“Fundamentally, the way we’ve been playing has got us good results and put us in a really good position in the league.
“We haven’t performed today, we’ve made mistakes, but we’ll get back on the training pitch and make sure we’re ready for the upcoming games.
“We have to put our chest’s out and pick ourselves up because football moves on quickly, we can’t dwell on this result.
“We have another chance to get a result on Tuesday and another chance to put more points on the board on Sunday, so we have to get over this quickly and make sure we’re in the right mindset come Tuesday night.”
The captain returned to the side following a spell on the sidelines with an ankle injury and was pleased to be back in the fold having appeared as a second half substitute.
He also found positives in the number of chances City created on Saturday afternoon which he believes is an improvement on last season.
“We still had chances, we could have scored two or three goals in the game, that’s the positive thing. Last season, we struggled to create chances, but we can’t concede goals like we did.
“I’m pleased to be back. I had my first training session with the 23’s last Saturday, then I had a week’s worth of training, so I’m just trying to get my fitness back up to where it needs to be.
“I feel good in training, I just need to keep my head down, keep working and try and get myself ready, but my ankle feels great.”
He also gave his sympathy to Wesley Jobello after the Frenchman was ruled out for the remainder of the 2019/20 season with a devastating ACL injury.
“I feel really, really, sorry for him and I’m massively disappointed for him. He’s a really nice lad and he’s looking to make an impact for the club, it’s just really unfortunate.”