Striker Will Keane admitted it was frustrating to concede an injury-time equaliser in yesterday’s FA Cup second-round tie against Coventry but was pleased to net his second goal of the season and get another game under his belt and feels he is getting closer to his best.
Callum O’Hare netted a 94th-minute leveller after Keane’s goal had given the Blues the lead six minutes after half-time.
"Really frustrating,” the 26-year-old said afterwards. "We probably hung on a little bit too much in the last 15 or 20 minutes, soaked up a bit too much pressure.
"I’m not sure why, maybe think we maybe retreated a little bit after we got the goal rather than pushing on and trying to get the second one.
"But saying that we held on until literally the last minute so at that point you think you’re going to see the game through.
"Will [Norris] made a couple of great saves and you think we’re going to ride our luck and we got caught out right at the end which was really disappointing.
"It happens, and to be fair to them they did push on in the second half, so they’ll feel it was their just rewards, so perhaps overall a draw might have been a fair result with their pressure at the end of the game.
"A couple of games this season we’ve won 1-0 and it’s been going in a similar way and we’ve got away with it. Today it wasn’t to be and we’ve got to dust ourselves down, it’s another game next week and we’ve got to go into it and try and get the win and get into the next round.”
Keane was pleased with his second goal of the campaign, his first having come in the Leasing.com Trophy tie against Gillingham.
"I think it was Rowey that nicked the ball back, we tried to push up high and press them when we could,” he continued.
"So it was a good interception from him and it was good to find Judgey, a nice bit of play to get half a yard.
"And I knew when he got the nice bit of space that he was going to put the ball into a dangerous area so I just wanted to make sure I got myself in there and it was nice to see it come to my feet and it was a nice tap-in.”
An instinctive finish? "Definitely. I think playing up front on my own, the manager probably wants me to be getting across that front post as much as I can when the ball is going wide.
"Sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself and get across there to free up someone else, just to drag the defenders, but luckily I had a bit of space and it was nice to see it go in.”
Keane, who underwent hamstring surgery early in the summer before rejoining the Blues on a permanent basis in August having been on loan in the second half of 2018/19, was making his fifth start of the season in addition to five appearances from the bench and he feels he’s getting closer to the top of his game.
"I think so, I feel good,” he said. "I got the minutes against Lincoln [inthe first-round replay]. It’s quite frustrating for the lads to get replays but at least it was more minutes for me in that last game and I’m feeling the benefit of it.
"I felt I was unlucky not to score in the last game so it’s nice today to cap the performance with that goal and it gives you that bit of confidence. Obviously that’s what I’m in the team to do. A good start and hopefully I’ll get more opportunities soon.”
On the team's overall performance, he added: "I think today we tried to have a big emphasis on playing our way out from the back and playing through the thirds, which we’ve done a lot with the manager a lot in the past.
"And we’ve got the players to do that, the likes of [Andre] Dozzell and [Flynn] Downes in midfield. They get the ball and can thread passes through, get [Jon] Nolan and Judgey in pockets of space.
"I thought at times we looked really dangerous when we did that well. Obviously we need to keep doing rather than in little spells we can just keep that pressure on and I’m sure we’ll get there.”