SKIPPER Olly Lancashire admitted Swindon Town’s emotions fluctuated from utter disbelief to intense frustration as opportunities to inflict damaging blows on a promotion rival were passed up at the Ricoh Arena.

The visitors’ misery at failing to make their periods of superiority count was only compounded when presented with the raw data in terms of the match statistics in the dressing room after the final whistle.

Town’s captain was particularly baffled by how his side failed to convert midway through the second half as centre-back Chris Robertson saw a header come back off the bar, new midfielder Ollie Banks had a shot blocked before Luke Norris was denied by Coventry City keeper Lee Burge moments later.

City then made the away side pay as Marc McNulty took advantage of a mistake by Keshi Anderson to fire Coventry back two goals in front and settle the encounter in the home side’s favour.

Lancashire admitted: “It’s probably the most frustrating game of the season in many ways.

“The stats man told me we had 19 shots. They had three on target and obviously the scoreline is 3-1.

“At 2-1 at half-time, I thought the momentum was with us, even in that first 20 minutes of the second half.

“(Then) there was a scramble and I can’t believe the ball hasn’t gone in. Then we’ve got hit by a sucker-punch when we’ve lost the ball in a bad area.”

Referring to the frantic passage of second-half play in which it seemed Town surely had to restore parity, he added: “I think it hit the crossbar twice, then Ollie Banks hit it.

“I think he claimed one of their men handballed it on the line. I didn’t see it myself but it was just a massive scramble and we needed that to go in.

“I think if that goes in with 20 minutes to go, there is only one team that is pushing to win it.

“With 19 shots, we need to be scoring more than one goal. Stats don’t win games obviously but we feel like we’ve done enough to win. Obviously we haven’t but we’ll go back to the training ground, work even harder and come back next week.”

Town frequently threatened to carve out chances but saw much of their promising build-up play decline in quality as they reached the City penalty area.

“Delivery was very good and we got to a lot of first contacts,’’ added Lancashire.

“We just didn’t seem to get the ball on target or maybe the keeper saved a couple. But we definitely had enough chances to score and to be fair to them (Coventry), they took their chances very well.

“With 10 minutes to go, we were pushing with the intent to get the points and then Keshi lost the ball and their man tucked it in.

“It was a sickening blow but we’ll pick ourselves up and we’ll go again (because) we’ve been on a good run.”