Luke Tisdale believed his side had complete control of the game but didn’t make the most of their chances in their 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednesday at the Coventry Building Society Stadium yesterday.
The U23s needed an injury time equaliser from Fabio Tavares to continue their unbeaten start to the season with a resolute defensive display from the visitors seeing City drop points in the league for the first time this season.
“I’m bitterly disappointed with a draw to be honest, I thought we had a massive control in the game apart from two moments, which is their goal where we don’t land on a second ball twice in the middle of the pitch and then once in the second half where they broke off our corner.
“Apart from that we have completely controlled it, which we should have done with the players we had on the pitch.
“We just couldn’t break them down, credit to Sheffield Wednesday, they were really low block, they threw their bodies in front of things, defended set pieces really well, they made blocks, they made tackles and made it really difficult for us to get the shot away but having said that I think if we had taken a little more risks with the ball and shown a little more personality we’d have broken them down earlier and gone on to win the game.”
Tisdale believed his side were guilty of overplaying at times and wanted his team to trouble the opponent’s keeper more but was pleased to see his team get the goal he felt they deserved.
“Yes, it’s very frustrating, I think the biggest disappointment is we didn’t work the goalkeeper. He’s not had a save to make for 93 minutes. We had opportunities to shoot, we missed the target, we delayed the final pass, we overplayed at times so that’s the biggest frustration is that if we had scored early when it was 0-0, I think we would have gone on to comfortably win the game.
“I think if we had scored a lot earlier in the second half, we’d have given ourselves a much better chance to go on and win the game but credit to Sheffield Wednesday because they defended for their lives so they will be devastated with a point in the same way our changing room is really flat with a point.
“(Scoring late on) That aspect is pleasing, they kept going. Fabio has got himself another goal which is important for him personally and keeps the group unbeaten, but we can’t get away from the fact it was a game we could have and should have won”.
Next up for the Sky Blues U23s is a trip to the Steel City to take on the Owls’ rivals Sheffield United next Tuesday and Tisdale knows how important it is for his side to put in an improved performance to ensure they maintain their unbeaten start to the season.
“We’ve just spoke in there if we take that performance level to Sheffield United we’ll be in for a really tough game, I’m sure we’ll be in for a tough one anyway but we will need to preform a lot better than we did today to get anything from that game.
“Sheffield United are a top Category 2 Development side that always finish top three in our league, so we are going to have to complete and show much more quality than we did so the players that maybe didn’t start today, Marco, Aaron, Harrison all came on and impacted the game in a really positive way are going to have to be ready to go next week.”