Coventry City manager Russell Slade bemoans brace from former charge Nicky Ajose in defeat to Swindon Town

Last summer, Charlton Athletic shelled out a hearty fee to bring Ajose to the Valley – then under the stewardship of Slade – and despite the Coventry chief making his current side fully aware of the danger posed by Ajose, his warnings seemingly fell on deaf ears as the 25-year-old scored twice to hand Town a 3-1 triumph.

Ajose’s brace at the Ricoh Arena marked his first two goals since rejoining Swindon on loan from Charlton in January and Slade thought that his struggling Sky Blues troops let themselves down, particularly with their first-half performance.

“To be honest, I didn’t see it coming,” said the Coventry boss.

“We probably had the best training week we’ve had since I’ve been here. In terms of our prep, I’ve asked questions of myself and everybody else.

“We got that right, in my opinion, and what we didn’t do; we didn’t execute it like we should have done.

“We talked about Nicholas Ajose – he will find space between you. You’ve got to pick him up in the box.

“He’s not going to be a threat outside the box but in the box, he’s a threat, and he proved to be a little bit of the difference between the two sides.

“They were better than us in both boxes.

“There was nothing in it up until the goal – they’d had four opportunities, we’d had four opportunities – and then they get the two goals, which makes it really difficult for us.

“What I was disappointed with as well was second balls and competing in that first half.

“We weren’t getting close enough to them. We weren’t affecting the ball in the first period.

“Second period was better and (there was) a lot of ball that was bouncing around in their final third but (we) lacked that ruthlessness, when you’re 2-0 down, to try and get back in the game.

“We got one back but we had a couple of opportunities that we needed to go in early in that second half to give ourselves a chance.”