Mark Robins felt his Sky Blues side were “lacking confidence” after being beaten 2-0 by Norwich City on Wednesday night.
City were undone in the first half by goals from Teemu Pukki and Emiliano Buendia conceding the crucial second goal in first half injury time.
The manager was disappointed with the manner in which his side conceded the second goal and lacked confidence on the ball in the first period.
Robins said: “The second half was good, the first half was awful, we looked like we were lacking confidence in certain areas, we were making the wrong decisions when we had to come out and press and when we had to stay at home.
“We ended up in a poor position, we were actually in a really good attacking position, if you give the ball away to them they can hurt you and that’s what happened.
“If you’re going to concede a goal, stay in the game and then you can have a really good go in the second half which is what we did, but to concede the second goal just gave the game away.”
Despite the defeat, Robins was pleased with City’s second half showing and wants his team to compete with promotion challengers Brentford in their next outing this weekend.
“We’re giving too many rubbish goals away, you have to go after them, you can’t buckle under the pressure, but we’ve got to go again in a couple of days and we want to compete for 90 minutes.
“Brentford have lost two on the bounce and they’ll be coming here like a wounded animal and we need to be the same.
“The second half was much better and we have to get after teams whoever they are and whatever quality they have, we have to show that we’re capable of competing with them and trying to get the goals that we need.
“That’s been our problem this season, where we’ve tried to go after goals, not scored them, and then conceded easy ones and teams aren’t having to work hard enough to score goals against us.”