The Blues have been less than convincing in their opening three Premier League games this season, yet despite not hitting top form so far, have accumulated seven points from nine and sit in fourth position after a 3-1 win over QPR.
“We’re not overly happy at the moment,” said City’s assistant first team manager. “We have not been at our best, but you counter-balance that by the amount of points we have and the fact we remain unbeaten and are scoring goals.
“There were times today when we got through almost too easily and we weren’t ruthless enough. There was a lack of urgency of times, but we’ll get there.
“A number of our players are still building up their fitness and are effectively still in their pre-season stage, so we will get back together in 10 days and be further along again.
“Gareth Barry will be nearer a return and Sergio should be there or thereabouts – and we will have all the new faces to add in as well.
“We’re not playing as well as we did this time last season when we were blowing teams away in the first-half and winning matches easier as a result.
“We were closing games off quicker, but if you miss so many opportunities to score, chances are you will pay the penalty at some stage.
“There is a certain amount of expectancy from ourselves and from our supporters because of the standards we’ve set and we know we can improve.”
Platt also lamented the fact City haven’t kept a clean sheet in their past five games, adding: “We need to defend better as a team. There are things we need to work on because we are not quite there yet.”
Mark Hughes was pleased with his team’s efforts overall.
“We put a real shift in after the break and are disappointed we didn’t take anything from the game,” he said.
“It was a body blow to concede so quickly after we had equalised. We had sensed an apprehension in the stadium and we fed off that, but we needed to stay at 1-1 longer and who knows what might have happened after that?
“On another day some of the chances that fell to Ryan Nelsen would have fallen to our strikers when we were 2-1 down, but that’s how it goes sometimes. I was encouraged by what I saw and we’ll take a lot of positives out of this game.”
