Coventry boss Mark Robins thought his side deserved to win after fighting back to draw 1-1 at Blackburn despite being down to 10 men.

Ben Brereton’s first-time finish in the 27th minute set Rovers on their way after a shaky opening that Coventry had the better of. But the hosts hit the woodwork and then Adam Armstrong was denied when through on goal.

And Coventry made them pay through a well-taken finish from Matty James, who earned the Sky Blues a point they deserved on the balance of play. They even survived playing the last seven minutes with 10 men after Leo Ostigard’s second yellow card.

They did so with relative ease though and have put some distance between the Sky Blues and the bottom three.

Robins wasn’t happy with the nature of the goal conceded but felt his “outstanding” side deserved the points.

He said: “I’ve got to be happy with it. I wasn’t really in the first half. I thought we started brightly, controlled the game, they didn’t have anything in terms of attacking in the first 25 minutes.

“And then for whatever inexplicable reason we start giving the ball away to them and they’ve got quality players in the final third, I mean real quality with Adam Armstrong, Harvey Elliott and Ben Brereton.

“You can’t switch off for a second. We gave them a sniff and they ended up scoring a goal.

“We moved the ball better when we had it in the second half, had a bit more of a purpose certainly without the ball and away from home we have to do that because our away form hasn’t been good enough.

“This week’s away performances have been to a really good level even though that we haven’t got the points we think we deserved. We deserved a point at Swansea and we certainly deserved the three points today I thought.

“The lads were outstanding.”

Rovers avoided a sixth consecutive defeat but the equaliser sapped their fragile confidence and they have won just two in eight at Ewood, where they have been so strong since returning to the Championship.

Tony Mowbray was disappointed at the “poor” defending for the equaliser.

He said: “We started pretty poorly, they started really hot for 15 minutes. We grappled the game away from them in the first half, came on pretty strong and scored a really good goal.

“It would have been nice to have scored a second. But we got undone by some pretty poor defending really, a long punt from the goalkeeper.

“We’ve worked on Coventry playing through the lines, their shape, but they went pretty direct today and from that directness, we didn’t win the first header, it went wide, it came in the box, we didn’t win the second header and they got the knockdown which they have been doing all day really. It was frustrating.

“I think teams are adjusting to us a little bit. Teams try to nullify Armstrong, I think.

“If anything, in that last 10 minutes, the worst thing that could have happened was them having a man sent off because they sit in a line of five, drop their midfield in and nullify the space.”