Cotterill is still upbeat as Millwall test looms

FOR Steve Cotterill “hope” springs eternal, despite the bitterly disappointing derby defeat at Villa.

Blues dropped to 20th after only a second league defeat of 2018, at the hands of their biggest rivals.

But the situation remains far rosier, as Blues prepare to host Millwall on Saturday, than two months ago when Cotterill’s men propped up the table.

“All in all we didn’t deserve to get anything out of the game and I don’t think we were good enough or experienced enough,” said the manager.

“But what has given us hope is the form we’ve been in of late. At the end of the day it’s happened and there’s nothing we can do about it.

“We came into the game in good form with big a game in the week, which would have zapped the lads a little bit. Whether that took anything out of us at the start of the game or not, I don’t know.”

Cotterill left £6 million record signing Jota on the bench alongside the fit-again striker Che Adams at Villa Park. His team selection and decision not to introduce the offensive pair until Blues were behind was questioned in some quarters.

But Cotterill defended his decision to stick with the players who had revived Blues with four wins from six games.

“That has been our best 11 there for weeks,” he said. “It’s boys who have done well lately.”

Goals have not been a problem for Blues in recent weeks. Seven were scored in the three league games prior to the Villa Park clash.

But Blues never really looked like scoring against their near neighbours, save for a Sam Gallagher effort that crashed against the post.

Fine margins, and Cotterill felt a goal shortly before the break might have altered the complexion of the match.

“If that chance goes in maybe it could be a different game,” he said. “We’ve had that before this season where we’ve missed chances or something’s just gone wide. out the

“But what we have to do is get belief from that and then grow even more in the game. We’ve hit the woodwork but that hasn’t been threatening enough.”

Cotterill reflected on the incident which led to Cheikh Ndoye’s Second City derby dismissal and insisted the Senegalese midfielder wasn’t a ‘volatile’ character.

Ndoye was given a second yellow card late on by referee Peter Bankes after grappling with Villa captain John Terry inside the box.

The 31-year-old had already been booked for a challenge on Jack Greal- ish and left Bankes with but to produce a red.

It compounded a miserable afternoon for Blues, who were well beaten courtesy of goals from Albert Adomah and Conor Hourihane.

The Blues manager said: “From a distance, before you look at it on a laptop that you don’t get a very good camera of, it looked like there was more than Cheikh Ndoye involved.

“Then on a laptop it’s not quite clear as to what happens. Even though he is a big, strong boy, he is not volatile, he is not aggressive in that manner. little choice

“In his broken English he said somebody had grabbed hold of him, but that’s as far as I have got with that. Whether he pushed him away, I don’t know.

“For Cheikh to get involved in that and him sent off, I am not quite sure about that.

“There were a couple of decisions that didn’t go our way in the second half that should have done. But you are away from home.’’

Ndoye’s dismissal saw him become the first player to be sent off in a Second City derby since Joey Gudjonsson in that infamous battle of 2003.