Alex Tettey is exasperated by the ‘madness’ of Norwich City’s injury crisis but still felt the Championship leaders should have beaten Coventry, despite having 13 players unavailable.
The injury-ravaged Canaries were close to grinding out a 1-0 win over the spirited Sky Blues but conceded in the 89th minute.
Coventry substitute Maxime Biamou turned in from close range to snatch a 1-1 draw but the point was enough for Norwich to extend an unbeaten run to 10 matches and keep hold of top spot.
“We are quite annoyed, to be fair,” said Tettey. “We saw the scenes (TV replays) after and it was just small margins for what we should have done to not concede that goal.
"So everyone is quite disappointed but, and there is a but, we didn’t lose the game. We wanted to win, we thought we had done enough to win the game, maybe not the second half but we could have easily avoided that goal – and I would have been standing here talking about three points.
“But there’s another game on Wednesday (at Luton) so we can put it right.”
Tha pain of that sucker punch was compounded by right-back Max Aarons getting injured as he desperately tried to prevent a cross from Ryan Giles ahead of the goal, leaving Carrow Road on crutches with a badly bruised shin.
That means City could have to travel to Luton without any fit full-backs, with Sam Byram and Bali Mumba out until next year and Xavi Quintilla struggling to shake off a hip issue, which has already forced midfielder Jacob Sorensen to cover at left-back for seven games.
With a hectic schedule of nine games to come in the next five weeks, following the delayed start to the campaign due to the Covid-19 pandemic, City only named six of their permitted nine substitutes – and five of those were inexperienced academy youngsters.
“I’m just thanking god that I’m not playing every game because it’s just madness,” long-serving midfielder Tettey joked.
“For those who have played all the games up to now and are not injured, well done, fair play to them, because it will come to a point where the body will break down.
“It’s very tough what we are doing here but hopefully the injuries we have, a couple, I wouldn’t say they are close, maybe two for the next game hopefully, but the rest are a bit far away – but we just have to go through it.”
He added: “It’s not even just at Championship level, you are talking about the Premier League and all of the top managers are moaning.
“We don’t want to be moaning all over the place. I’m not a top scientist or doctor but tell any other person to keep playing football and just recover sometimes two days in between and play high intensity football, for the long run you are due to get injuries.
“It’s not rocket science that we need to protect the players but it’s not our place to fight that cause. We can always talk about it but there are other people who decide these things.”
All of which meant that, in the circumstances, the 34-year-old former Norway international could make his peace with a 1-1 draw to go 10 unbeaten and stay top of the table.
“That’s very good but obviously we want to keep going,” Tettey concluded. “We want to play every game to win it and once again we are quite annoyed with ourselves that we didn’t quite get over the line.
“We’ll just try and forget about it and to keep fighting.”
MORE: Late heartbreak for injury-plagued City as Biamou's late strike rescues a point for Coventry
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