Mark Robins admits Coventry City have suffered a “huge blow” with the news that key midfielder Ben Sheaf is set to be out for a minimum of six weeks. The 25-year-old suffered an adductor strain in training last week with an initial prognosis that he’d be out for a couple of weeks.

However, after further investigation it appears that the influential Sky Blues player will be out until early November. “Ben is going to be out for a minimum of six weeks, which is a huge blow,” said the City manager, “because that was the one area where we didn’t really strengthen in the summer.”

Speaking after Tuesday night’s 3-2 defeat at Cardiff City, Robins highlighted the fact that his side are struggling to adapt to the loss of Gustavo Hamer, who was sold to Sheffield United last month, as well as Sheaf to injury. “Losing Gus we have lost 70 percent of our success rate in terms of his passing, but his passing was always penetrative and always got through teams, and that was what we were missing in large spells of the game. And that’s the challenge for us, moving forward, as to how we can break teams down.

“I have just got to make sure we have got enough in there or we might have to do things in a different way for the time being, but really we have to be braver than that because we have got good players in there that generally do the job. But, for whatever reason, for the two thirds of the first half we didn’t cause Cardiff any issues what-so-ever.”

Robins has also expressed concern about Milan van Ewijk after the wing-back was forced to leave the field early in the second half with a thigh injury.

“He felt his thigh but whether it’s a strain or a tear or not, I don’t know yet,” he said. “He felt it at the end of the first half but he wanted to carry on. There wasn’t a loss of power, which suggests it’s not something that’s huge, but if you feel something like that…

“But that’s another thing, players have got to understand their bodies because it can become a compounded problem if they carry on. I can understand if they want to stay on the pitch but they have got to be sensible too because we can’t afford to get too many injuries.”