Coventry City manager Gordon Strachan says the Sky Blues wasted Lee Hughes’ ability in the 1-0 defeat against local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday.

City resorted to hitting long balls to the £5,000,001 man after they fell behind and Strachan said that was never part of the plan.

“It would be unfair to judge Lee Hughes from that game,” said the fuming Coventry boss. “If he gets chances he will score goals, but the way we played on Sunday wasn’t the way to play to Lee and was not what we had worked on in training all week.

“It was just such a disappointing performance, especially as we got off to such a good start last week. We answered some questions with our performance at Stockport, but there were different ones being asked against Wolves that we could not answer.”

City were beaten by a seventh minute strike from Welsh international Carl Robinson and looked devoid of ideas to get themselves back into the game.

“We didn’t want to see Lee and Jay having to chase balls from over the top,” said Strachan. “I thought with our midfield four we would not have to resort to that.

“I wanted more imagination and bravery on the ball and expected more from the midfielders, whether I am over-estimating them as players is something I will have to look at.

“But I will have to look at things as a whole. The big concern is that we were not mentally brave enough and I need to look at why that manifests itself in a game.”

The Sky Blues’ chance to put things right comes this Friday when they take on Bradford at Valley Parade. But the Bantams will prove to be City’s stiffest opposition yet as they top the table just two games into the season and are yet to concede a goal.