Mark Robins admitted it was a “difficult” result to take after the Sky Blues were narrowly beaten by Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium on Wednesday night.
City looked strong throughout the contest in South Wales only to fall to defeat to a Ben Cabango goal early in the second period and couldn’t find a way past Freddie Woodman in the Swans goal despite creating plenty of chances.
The manager felt his side were the better team on the night but weren’t strong enough when defending the set-piece that led to Swansea’s winning goal.
Robins said: “We had most of the game, we started off brilliantly, we played some great football and kept a team that are near the top of the division down to one chance, it’s just difficult to take.
“It was a really poor goal and when it comes down to something like that it’s unforgiveable, we have to defend properly, it’s a brilliant ball into the box but we’ve not been strong enough to stop Cabango coming through our first block.
“We do everything right, we’ve not managed to get a goal, we’ve not had that quality at the right end and we’ve not defended that corner, we’ve done everything else really well.
“You’ve got to dust yourself down and get on with it again, another opportunity has gone begging and we’ve got to go again on Saturday and get ready for that game.”
Robins also felt his side should have equalised when Kyle McFadzean fired wide of the post and wants his team to improve their end product.
“I think there was a penalty in the first half for us, you have to take it on the chin and take some of the chances that we created, we were undoubtedly the better team tonight and we were really unfortunate.
“We’ve just got to be better because we’re getting punished for things and at this level you get punished.
“All the way through we’ve had good ball possession, we gave the ball away too cheaply, the first 25 minutes was as good as anything this season, then we became rushed and kept giving the ball back to them.
“The goal comes from a corner out of nothing, it’s a really good team this Swansea team, they’ve not hurt us, they’ve not played around us, we should have had one back through Kyle McFadzean, I thought that was in, Max has gone through a couple of times, the end product isn’t what it needs to be.”