Mark Robins feels his Sky Blues side have “proven” they can compete away from home after producing a strong performance in their draw with Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park on Saturday afternoon.
City came from behind to secure a well-deserved point against Rovers with Matty James’ first goal for the Sky Blues cancelling out Ben Brereton’s first-half strike.
The manager was pleased with how City started the game in Lancashire, but admitted his side switched off for the hosts opening goal.
Robins said: “I thought we started brightly, we controlled the game, they didn’t really have anything in an attacking sense in the opening 25 minutes and then we started giving the ball away to them, which gave them a foothold, and they’ve got quality players in the final third.
“You can’t switch off for a second, we gave them a sniff and they ended up scoring the goal, we got the press wrong and they managed to get the ball across the box with the power that they’ve got on the right-hand side.
“We didn’t deal with the ball across the box very well, it was pleasing to get to half-time intact and to be able to regroup a little bit.
“The second-half was a lot better out of possession, it was a really difficult surface to play on, both teams tried to do that, we moved the ball better when we had it in the second-half, we had a bit more purpose without the ball and away from home that’s what we have to do.
“Our away form hasn’t been good enough but this week’s away performances have proven we can play to a really good level even though we’ve not got the points that we feel we deserve.”
Robins also praised the work rate of his side in the second period and wants to team to remain in control of matches having dominated up until the hosts broke the deadlock.
“The goal came from a number of things, we dropped to deep, we didn’t get out to press the ball quickly enough, there was a run from Nyambe which was a really powerful run that took Sam out of the game, we didn’t get the back line up and we weren’t in there to deal with Brereton’s run.
“It’s disappointing from our perspective, until that point we’d controlled the vast majority of the game and that’s about calmness and understanding we need to get into positions so that they can’t make those runs.
“The lads were outstanding, the changes were important, we got more energy on the pitch at the right time and we had another opportunity where Viktor tried to get the ball out of his feet and ran out of steam.”