Sky Blues Under-23s coach Luke Tisdale was left with a mixed reaction after his side came away from Barnsley with a 0-0 draw.
Despite keeping a clean sheet and coming away from home with a point on the board, Tisdale was left disappointed with his side’s performance with the ball.
Barnsley had a host of chances and set-pieces in the game, but City stayed strong and denied the Tykes making a breakthrough.
“It was probably our best performance without the ball all season but our worst with it.” Tisdale said.
“Barnsley totally dominated the game from start to finish and we weren’t able to get any foot hold in the game whatsoever, we had no possession as a result of our poor play we had to defend for literally 90 minutes so that’s a real disappointing aspect from the game that we weren’t able to hurt Barnsley.
“We spoke to the players after the game and we spoke about deciding what level they want to go to because Barnsley play exactly the same way that their first team do and if you want to impact our first team then that’s not how the game should’ve looked.
“Do we want to be a team that sit back and defend and can’t get out of our half for 90 minutes, absolutely not.
“It’s good that we soaked up the pressure and came away with a clean sheet, but we couldn’t have had any complaints if Barnsley had gone on and scored.”
From a defensive standpoint, City stay resolute and kept a second clean sheet in a matter of three games.
It was also the first time in a long while that City were able to name an unchanged back four heading into the game, something Luke believes helped his side defensively.
“The goalkeeper (Cian Tyler) and the back four can take a lot of pride in how they defended.
“It was the first time we had an unchanged back four in possibly 18 months so that was quite nice going into the game.
“However, we had an injury around 20 minutes into the game with our Trialist coming off so Jay McGrath came on and to be fair to him and Blaine Rowe they defended outstandingly well.”
The Sky Blues travel to Yorkshire once more next week as they prepare to take on Sheffield United and Tisdale is hoping his side can take some ‘personality’ into their next fixture.
“We need some personality to get on the ball and play forward and play through a press and make good decision about where we play and when we play.
“There was a lot missing in possession against Barnsley and we didn’t get any foothold, our pass sequence count was low which meant the ball constantly came back into our half and we spent 90 minutes defending, so hopefully we can improve on that next week.”