ROY Keane’s decision to start with just one striker, on home turf, backfired against Coventry City.

ROY Keane’s decision to start with just one striker, on home turf, backfired against Coventry City.

And yet new boy Jake Livermore refused to blame the team’s formation for a disappointing 2-1 defeat, which saw Town slip five points behind second-placed Cardiff.

Jason Scotland, a lone striker for the first 45 minutes, obliged with a smart finish just before the hour-mark to halve the deficit, after Clive Platt’s header and Lukas Jutkiewicz’s penalty had put the Sky Blues in firm control.

But Town could not fashion an equaliser during the final half-hour.

In Livermore’s eyes, the defeat was down to a sluggish start rather than the wrong tactics.

“I don’t always think it’s about formations or structures,” insisted Livermore, who was starting his second game for Town since his loan move from Tottenham.

“It’s just about having 11 players out there who are willing to win.

“We’re disappointed because we started the game slowly, although I think we did enough to get something out of the game. We feel hard done by.

“I don’t think we were out of the blocks early enough, until the second half when we started to pass the ball around and look a bit more like Ipswich Town.

“There’s a lot of quality in the squad, there’s a good mix, and I think this club can go places,” added Livermore.

Keane himself defended the decision to start with a 4-1-4-1 formation, even though he was quick to change tactics at half-time by introducing a second striker in Connor Wickham.

“I don’t regret playing just one striker up front in the first half,” said Keane.

“The bottom line is that the two goals we conceded were set pieces, a corner and penalty, so I wouldn’t over-analyse or get bogged down.

“It’s always an easy excuse for a manager to say that he got it wrong, and that we should have played him or him.”