Coventry City boss Mark Robins was full of praise for Town following his side’s 2-1 home defeat to the Blues, which took Kieran McKenna’s men to within a point of promotion to the Premier League.
Cameron Burgess’s 69th-minute goal saw Town to a crucial three points which puts them three points ahead of third-placed Leeds going into the final weekend of the season, Kieffer Moore’s eighth-minute opener having been cancelled out by Haji Wright’s leveller in the 64th minute.
"Rubbish result, performance was OK,” Robins said when asked his thoughts on the match. "A little bit flat at times. We attacked, I thought, pretty well against a really good side, so firstly, congratulations to them because they are almost there, the prize is there for them, they can see it.
"From our perspective, we gave away a really soft goal whilst we were trying to build into the game and that’s really been the story of our season, we concede too many goals, we score quite a few goals, but we’re on the back foot and we give ourselves a mountain to climb where we need to address that, that has to be addressed because you can’t win things if you’re conceding too many goals.
"On the flip side of it, we attacked actually pretty well. We had a lot of the ball, to be fair, but we’ve had 13 shots, they’ve had 14, they’ve had 12 inside our box. That’s the thing we [can’t allow to happen] and we give the opposition goals rather than making them work for it.
"That’s what has happened and that’s what has happened lately. And then the volume of goals that you’ve got to get back, the pressure becomes more intense.
"I thought the energy before the game, I was worried about that, trying to get the energy, but that wasn’t the case necessarily tonight, the thing that cost us was really a lack of quality at times and poor decision-making.
"[Keeper] Brad [Collins] has been called up a few times to make some brilliant saves, and he has.
"Playing out, we’ve been OK, a little bit laboured at times, but there’s a full press coming there, they press with five players and then they have five sat behind ready to mop up anything.
"But I thought we dealt with that pretty well, we played out pretty well. Created some good openings, scored a great goal from Haji, a good move and a good goal.
"We were sort of around it the first chance that we had, the keeper [Vaclav Hladky]’s made a brilliant save [from Wright in the first half]. But when we equalised, they started to rock, there were there, they were there for the taking but we just didn’t have that ability to keep the ball.
"We lost Joel Latibeaudiere and then Bidders [Jake Bidwell] came on and we were still attacking. We’re down to one fit centre-half now, it’s like a Monty Python sketch. That was a blow but that was the story of it, really.”
Asked to reflect on Town, who will be a Premier League club if they take a point from Saturday’s home match against Huddersfield, Robins added: "I think they’ve been fantastic. I think the big thing for them is they’ve had the team together for a long time, so that continuity.
"They’ve not necessarily sold anybody that they didn’t want to, they’ve brought players in and added to it and had that continuity. That’s stands people in good stead.
"They’ve got momentum from last season and the success they’ve had as a group. They’ve got that camaraderie as well because of the achievements that they’ve had together and the success they’ve had together, it’s a recipe that, a really good recipe for success.
"I think they’ve done fantastically well. A good set of players, they work hard, they’ve not necessarily got any superstars in there, but they’ve got some really, really good players, some really talented players.”