Mark Robins believes tonight’s latest run out was the best the Sky Blues have played this pre season and shows the hard work on the training ground is paying off despite the result.
“I thought tonight was the best we’ve looked this pre season really, there was a bit more, you could see the work we have done with them certainly for the for 60/70 minutes.
“This was a really young team alongside the likes of Tyler Walker and Ben Sheaf.
“Bright got half an hour and we had a look at a couple of trialists, then you have Jones and Wilson they are all in need of games so that’s why it was a bit disjointed.
“You can’t get any rhythm because you have players getting ill and having to isolate so we haven’t got the squad together.”
City came closest to opening the scoring with arguably one of the best opportunities of the game when Jodi Jones almost picked out Trialist A.
“We could have had the first goal of the game when Jodi Jones put his free kick in and the lad can’t quite direct his header towards goal.
“On another day that goes in.”
In the second half Robins rang the changes with an average of 19 heading into the final 20 minutes as the Gaffer gave some of the younger players in the squad minutes against League Two opposition.
“The kids that came on were really young kids and maybe the opposition were a bit too powerful for them but it gives them a brilliant insight into playing first team football so for me it was a really good work out.”
The workout came against Nigel Clough’s Mansfield side, who edged a tight game after George Lapslie found the back of the net following the restart.
“Nigel’s teams always try to play as they are street wise and have players of good knowledge and good ability, with the likes of Quinn and McLaughlin out there on the left-hand-side.
“The diamond they play was and they play some decent football and I thought we did ok without hurting them too much.”
City take on Norwich City tomorrow evening at Chesterfield’s Technique Stadium.