Boss Kieran McKenna says Town’s process around penalty shootouts will be reviewed, the Blues having exited three cup competitions on spot-kicks over the last year, this evening’s Carabao Cup first-round loss at League Two Bromley the latest.
George Hirst and Ali Al-Hamadi missed for Town as the Ravens ran out 5-4 victors following a 1-1 draw over 90 minutes, their first ever win in the competition they entered for the first time last year.
"Frustrating to go out of the competition and never a nice way to go out of the competition,” McKenna said. "There were some good bits in the game, some things that we can do better, for sure.
"We certainly had enough chances over the tie to go through and if we were more clinical then we would have won the game.
"When we didn’t go and get the first goal in the first half, it’s really important that we didn’t give one away and set pieces were always going to be the big threat tonight.
"So we’re really disappointed to concede from that and we need to do better just before half-time.
"But I thought the urgency to go and chase the game in the second half was good. We had enough chances to win it, for sure. And if we take one of our chances at the end, then we’re probably saying it’s a good comeback win.
"We still need to improve, there’s no doubt about it. The group is not where we want it to be yet and while we’re still working on that, we’ve got to fight for the points, which continues on Sunday, and we have a lot of work to do to be the group that we want to be this year.”
Asked why the group isn’t where it needs to be at present, he added: "There’s a lot of different areas. We have a smaller group in depth than we would have wanted. Certainly shorter in some positions than a team in our position would want to be.
"We have players coming back from big injuries, who are getting their first minutes. Chieo [Ogbene] may be an easy example but there are other boys who had surgeries and other issues at the back end of last year who are trying to work their way back into fitness and sharpness, but are having to do it in competitive matches, which is a challenge.
"We’ve got players arriving at the club, who aren’t ready to compete for us yet. We’ve lost a lot of players and we’ve got players who want to leave the club, so we’re not going to be at our best yet.
"But I really believe that if we work in the right way, if we take the lessons as they come, if we work day-by-day in the right way, then we can build a really good team again here this season, so that’s what we’re going to try and do.”
Quizzed on how challenging that is for him, McKenna smiled: "There’s no sob stories, we’re blessed to be in the position that we are. It’s been a challenging summer. For the club, there’s been a lot of change every year, moving divisions and a lot of change when you have a relegation season, maybe especially for us with the speed of that climb.
"There’s a lot of change and a lot of situations to manage, but that’s the job. It’s a privileged one and it’s up to us to do the best that we can with that and we have to keep working hard day-by-day, do the right things and if we do that, then I believe that we can build a really good team here and have a really good season.”
Tonight’s on-penalties loss follows last year’s second-round Carabao Cup exit to another League Two club, AFC Wimbledon, who won 4-2 in that shootout after a 2-2 draw, while Town were knocked out of the FA Cup at the fourth round stage by Nottingham Forest at the City Ground, losing 5-4 the sides having drawn 1-1.
Historically, the Blues have won only five of 18 shootouts in which they have taken part in all competitions.
McKenna was asked whether the three losses over the last year is just chance or whether Town’s approach to penalty shootouts needs to be addressed.
"I think we need to reflect on it, to be fair, as a staff and as a group. We do practise our penalties, we practised them before today.
"You can get tails or heads three times in a row, so maybe it’s that, but I wouldn’t like to hide behind that. I think we probably need to do a little bit better on something in our process. It’s something that we’ll review because that’s three shootouts in a year, which isn’t a lot of fun.
"The next one possibly will be for the FA Cup and, yes, being honest, we need to look at our process and see if there’s anything that we could possibly could control in terms of things we could do differently.”