Boss Roy Keane bemoaned his side’s lack of goals after losing 2-1 at home to Coventry City. The Blues manager was disappointed with his team’s first half display but felt they improved after the break.
Keane said: "I think we had enough good attacking play, particularly in the second half, but we’ve not been scoring enough goals and that was the case today.
"If you score one at home you think you’ve a chance of at least getting a point. You can talk about possession but we gave two very bad goals away and we gave ourselves a mountain to climb and we weren’t quite able to do it.
"We gave ourselves a chance by getting back into it so quickly with Jason, but the first half was poor and we should do better.”
The Town manager thought his team were well under par before the break: "I was pleased to go in at 1-0 at half-time. We couldn’t have been any worse and we weren’t, but then to give the penalty away.
"The penalty was a bad goal, a really bad goal to give away. When you think of the progress we’re trying to make, just to give away a penalty like that is criminal really.”
Keane feels his side made poor decisions in and around the area: "Possession won’t win you football matches, but we got into good areas in the second half, wide positions on the edge of the box where you need to be inventive.
"I thought we were a bit on our heels today, we were waiting for things to happen rather than making it happen.
"We just need that bit of quality sometimes, someone with that bit of composure when it drops to them to think ‘this is the right decision, this is the right pass’. Today we picked the wrong one too many times.”
Keane says full-back Mark Kennedy is unlikely to play at Watford on Tuesday after suffering another hamstring injury in the closing stages.
Coventry boss Aidy Boothroyd was delighted with his side’s first win at Portman Road since 1994: "It was tough, any game in the Championship is difficult, but coming here is very, very hard because they’re a good side and they’re where they are for a reason. It was a difficult game today.”
The one-time Colchester manager was in little doubt that Lukas Jutkiewicz‘s first half strike crossed the line: "I thought we were the better team in the first half. The ‘goal’ from Lukas is a goal but obviously the referee doesn’t have the benefit of goal-line technology, so it’s my turn again to complain about that and say we should have it. But you have to get on with it and you can’t blame referees.
"The first half we created a lot of chances, I thought we put them under a lot of pressure, but in the second half I thought they came out the better team and, although we hit the post, it was a fight for your life, defend for your life job. You have to do that in the Championship, and we did it really well.”