Sky Blues midfielder Ben Sheaf reflected on his side’s valiant effort in yesterday’s 2-1 loss away at Southampton.
City bowed out of the Emirates FA Cup at Saint Mary’s this weekend, but Sheaf highlighted the positives to take from the contest.
“I think that was a performance which we could be proud of,” Sheaf stated.
“I think we limited them to a few chances, especially in the first half. They’ve got quality, they’ve got quality off the bench and they had a few chances as the game went on.
“I still think overall we probably had the better clear-cut chances and I think we were unlucky not to take it to at least penalties. But as I said, it’s definitely a performance that I’m proud of.
“There’s massive positives to take from the game; it’s a decent Premier League team and the lads were looking forwards to putting ourselves up against a Premier League team. We gave a really good account of ourselves. At the end of the day we’re really disappointed but happy with the performance.”
Despite Viktor Gyökeres’ early opener, Stuart Armstrong equalised before Kyle Walker-Peters sealed victory for the Saints on 112 minutes. Having battled away against the Premier League side until the very end of the game, Sheaf spoke about the quality of the opposition.
“The speed of the players, especially in the second half, they started to move it a bit quicker and you can feel that. Definitely the speed of the game is a little bit more than the Championship is, but I think that we coped with it well.
“They probably felt that they needed that bit of quality off the bench because I feel that we contained them pretty well. For that equalising goal, you can’t really do too much about that because he struck it so sweet and put it in the top bins. Maybe if they don’t score that I think that we could probably see the game out, but it is what it is.
“We were pretty comfortable sat in there for periods of the game, and then we looked quite dangerous on the counter attack and created some good chances. It was a bit different to in the league, a bit deeper and defensive but I still think that we had a good threat going forwards throughout the game.”
Next up for the Sky Blues is the visit of Blackpool to the Coventry Building Society Arena on Tuesday, and Sheaf stressed the need to recover well before returning to action.
“We’re going to have to eat well and recover well, because it’s a big game on Tuesday and we need to start picking up wins in the league if we’re going to stand any chance of getting into the playoffs.”