Mark Robins praised Gustavo Hamer’s “brilliant” goal after his injury-time strike secured a 1-1 draw with Derby County at Pride Park on Tuesday night.
The Sky Blues fell behind to a late goal from Colin Kazim-Richards, only for Hamer to equalise with a well-taken volley right at the death.
The manager felt his side weren’t at their best against the Rams, but was happy enough with a point after a tough encounter in Derbyshire.
Robins said: “We didn’t play brilliantly tonight, I thought we just looked a little bit flat, we didn’t move the ball as well as we can do, we went a little bit long without any accuracy really.
“There’s things to be unhappy about, but there’s things to be happy about, the togetherness is brilliant and the never say die attitude is there.
“The goal was brilliant, it was a great strike from Gus, he kept his eye on it, and if you see the ball dropping out of the sky like that there’s only one person you want there and it’s Gus, he controlled it brilliantly.
“He was inches away from smashing a free-kick into the back of the net, he had one in the first-half where he caught it brilliantly and the goalkeeper had to make a good save, we’ve had quite a lot of good opportunities and we haven’t taken them.
“They were limited to a couple of efforts and they hit the crossbar at the end of the game, it’s a decent point for us at the end of a tough game.”
He also felt that despite grabbing a late equaliser, his side need to start turning draws into wins on the road.
“They’ve changed the way they play with Steve McClaren coming in and guiding Wayne [Rooney] and the coaching staff, it’s changed the dynamic for them and made them a little bit more difficult to play against.
“It’s a good point in the end, being one-nil down away from home so late in the game, we’ve got to be happy with the point, but we’ve got to turn these points away from home into wins.
“It’s a step forward for us, we’ve been losing games and we’re four unbeaten now so we’ll take the positives and move onto Saturday where we’ve got a bit of time to recover now.”
City had chances to win the contest and Robins was impressed with the impact of his substitutes made in attack.
“We could have won this game four-two, they’ve hit the bar and had a penalty shout that probably could have been a penalty and we’ve had one that’s nailed on, the referee hasn’t made the right decision for the first one or the second one.
“Like we said on Saturday, the decisions are there for them to make and sometimes they give them, sometimes they don’t.
“I felt we could have won the game, after we scored the equaliser, we could have gone on and got another opportunity, the three lads up front changed the dynamic of the game, the energy was brilliant, it’s just what you want.
“Callum O’Hare has had a header that we should have scored from, it was a brilliant ball in from Ryan Giles, we haven’t stopped crosses well enough tonight, Sam McCallum’s come back in and looked like he missed a game and clearly he has.
“They felt they had something to hold onto as well, they’ve got energy and changed it and they’ve got a lot of young players here that have come into the team and started to do pretty well.”