Mark Robins believes it was a good game for his side to “learn” from after the Sky Blues were beaten by Bournemouth on Friday night.
City went behind to a Jefferson Lerma strike early on, before Matty Godden equalised from the penalty spot, with Dan Gosling’s second-half brace the difference between the two sides.
Robins feels his side can learn from tonight’s fixture and admitted it was an eye-opener against the former Premier League side.
Robins said: “It’s a good game to have had and use to learn from, we’ve got plenty of time to pick the bones out of it, but these are teams you’re going to come up against at this level and if you’re not bang on it then you’re going to be bang in trouble and that’s eventually what happened.
“Against a team that has just come down from the Premier League, it was an eye opener for everybody, you know you’re going to come up against players and teams in this league that are better and tonight was one of those nights.”
The manager praised the Cherries for making it difficult for his side and felt there was no disgrace in losing to a side who have spent the past five seasons in the top flight.
“We went in at 1-1 at half-time and we were a bit fortunate, we cleared a couple off the line and if you’re playing into their press then it becomes difficult, you have to play outside it or through it or over it and they’re quick, technically gifted players.
“They made it difficult, but having said that, we defended pretty well for the most part, we just gave them too many opportunities with the ball, which isn’t like us, and we said in the dressing room, we gave them more tonight than we did in the whole of last season.
“There’s no disgrace in losing to them, I hope in time we can be more confident and more competent with the ball, we know we can do that, it was just a difficult evening, it’s about learning and making sure that we don’t dwell on it too much to the degree it starts to cause an issue with confidence, we just have to move past it quickly and move on.”