Coventry City lost further ground on the play-off places in their 1-0 defeat at home to Millwall on Wednesday evening.
Tom Bradshaw grabbed the only goal of the game late on to extend the Sky Blues' winless run to six games with the hosts missing out on the chance to break back into the top six. Gary Rowett's men went into the match as heavy outsiders but managed to cut the gap between them and Coventry to just one point in victory.
Both clubs approach a crossroads in the form of the January transfer window, with decisions to be made on whether to take a few gambles in looking to make a credible push for the play-offs.
Mark Robins was left frustrated by a couple of penalty appeals the Sky Blues had turned down in his post-match thoughts, quotes are provided by CoventryLive.
He said: "I think there were two, one on Callum (O'Hare) and one on Vik (Viktor Gyokeres).
"Vik was dragged to the floor but there was nothing given. But I can’t for the life of me see why Callum’s wasn’t given because he’s hacked him down as he’s ran through, so I can’t understand that one. But again, I understand why the game was the way it was."
It looks a tall order for Coventry to bulldoze their way back into play-off contention in the second half of the season, but if they can keep hold of their best players next month Robins will be confident of taking their push deep into the campaign.
The Verdict
The Sky Blues have some time off to spend on the training ground between now and their next league action on 15th January. Ample time to reflect on their recent poor run, and to focus on what they need to do to get back to playing the exciting attacking football they were consistently producing at the beginning of the campaign.
It can be difficult to make sense of the thick cluster of teams on the periphery of the top six with most of them having played a different number of fixtures. Blackburn Rovers and Middlesbrough have demonstrated in the last couple of months that a burst of victories can completely change the outlook of your season and Robins will be hoping to emulate those streaks moving into 2022.