Mark Robins says he cannot fault his players after they fell to a narrow defeat against Burnley.
A goal from Nathan Tella was enough to seal all three points for Burnley in a tightly-contested affair.
Despite the defeat, Robins was encouraged by City's showing, and admitted that a moment of quality from Tella was all that separated the two sides.
On the performance against Burnley today…
“I think we’ve been really good and I think we’ve done really well against a team that has just come down from the Premier League.
“We’d love to be on the front foot and create loads of chances, that’s the aim, but you’ve got to be mindful that if you go after it they’re going to pick you off.
“When you’re talking about it, the difference between the two teams was a ball over the top and we haven’t read it because the quality of player we have, we just don’t expect that and we get caught out and Nathan Tella squeezes it into the net and that’s the disappointment.
“I don’t think you can be disappointed at the work rate or the way we’ve approached to try to get back on level terms.
“I’m certainly not disappointed with the work rate. We were ruined by the lack of quality in that final third but in terms of the work rate I can’t fault the players there, other than the result at the end but the performance is important, don’t get me wrong.
“Everybody can get caught up with league positions but we can’t do that and we’ve got to build into some sort of momentum and form and that’s the process we’re going through and the team we played today can beat anybody in this division on they’re day and I thought we were pretty good today, I’ve got to say.”
On the start for Tyler Walker…
“He’s been good with his performances in training and, like I say, it’s difficult because he’s played two games, against Norwich and Burnley, the two top teams.
“He’s a little unlucky at how the games have fallen, but I thought he worked hard, but there was little to work off, only scraps because we were out of possession for a while and we didn’t haven’t got that set-up where we can go after teams like that, especially against these because they’ll pick you off and stay in games."
On the quadruple substitution…
“That was the stage of the game, we had plenty of the ball in that stage but we were still finding it difficult to get the ball in that area up the field to be able to cause them problems.
“Once we were up there we got it into decent wide areas but the quality was not there, but we looked like we could do something and open them up and that was the period in the game where we looked like we had grown into it and we took the game to them."
On City still building into things...
“Don’t forget we’re totally different from last year we’re building into things, last season was last season, so you can’t compare it.
“We’ve also got players out of the side and you’re desperate to get them back. Callum O’Hare is one of them and Liam Kelly is another but like I say the changes teams can make against you is a huge difference.
“We’ll continue to work and you don’t get down, you stick with it and you work so the team improves and that’s been proven time and time again.”