The Sky Blues gifted the Rams their first goal when a stay Jack Rudoni back-pass to the keeper was intercepted by Jerry Yates, who rounded Oliver Dovin and scored from a tight angle with just 11 minutes on the clock. The visitors then doubled their lead midway through the second half in controversial circumstances, with Robins and his staff insisting Yates was four yards off-side when he hit a shot that deflected off Bobby Thomas and looped up over the goalkeeper.

“And they have got a little bit of quality as well and when they do that they are a threat and a decent team. They put us under pressure and we played the ball backwards and invited it on. The back-pass from Jack (Rudoni) was uncharacteristic but they ended up scoring and taking the lead.”

He added: “But the intensity just wasn’t there. You have to move the ball quickly and try to shift them really quickly. We tried to play the same way as we did against Middlesbrough but it’s a different game. I take responsibility for it, I take responsibility for all the results. Tonight wasn’t good enough.”

Asked about the second goal and suggestions of it being off-side from a long punt up from the Derby keeper which was flicked onto Yates, the manager said: “Yeah, my staff are telling me it was about four yards off-side. If that’s the case then what’s he doing? I don’t know because I haven’t seen it back but my staff are telling me it’s well off-side. They are saying about four yards, but well off-side.”