Mark Robins was “happy” with a point after the Sky Blues kept their second clean sheet of the season in a goalless draw with Birmingham City on Friday night.
Tyler Walker came closest to breaking the deadlock for City who were solid throughout the 90 minutes at St Andrew’s.
The manager opted for a change of formation, starting with a back four and five in midfield, and felt his team needed to get more players forward to support lone striker Walker in attack.
Robins said: “I’m happy with the point, it’s okay, I’m alright with the fact it was a scrappy game that we didn’t lose.
“I thought we started the game really well in possession, the build-up phase was really good, you run the risk of not getting enough bodies high up the pitch, when you play five in midfield, and that’s what happened, we were too far away from Tyler.
“They’ve set out to come and frustrate us and block the space off, and we were getting out to start with, but we made one or two errors and they were trying to play off our mistakes and we ended up playing the ball backwards which invites pressure.”
He also praised goalkeeper Marko Marosi after the Sky Blues stopper made a stunning fingertip save to deny Lukas Jutkiewicz the winner late on.
“It was difficult, but we have to take the positives from the game, we’ve got a clean sheet, it was a scrappy second-half, Marko’s made a brilliant save to get us a point and their goalkeeper has made one or two really good saves from Tyler.
“We’ve got to take a point, it’s a building block because of what’s happened in the last few games, if you’re not conceding at one end it means you’re not wide open and we’ve not been keeping many clean sheets, it’s our second this season, we’ll take a point and move on.”
Robins was frustrated that he was unable to work with a fully fit squad during the international break with the likes of Julian Dacosta, Michael Rose and Matty Godden all missing through injury.
“We’ve not been able to do a massive amount of work because of injuries, Julian Dacosta underwent surgery again on Monday, going into the international break you’re rubbing your hands thinking you can do some work, we’ll make sure everybody gets the rest they need to, the lads that need to train and play games, they’ll play, you come out the other end ready to go, but that didn’t happen.
“We have to be resourceful and make sure we’re on our toes, Michael Rose limped out of training last Monday and hasn’t trained since, which gives us a problem, Leo Ostigard has been away with Norway who have incurred some positive tests, we’ve been told by the doctor of the EFL that he’s tested negative for the virus.”