Hylton forced off by tight hamstring

The forward had endured a tough first period against the Shrews, clearly not at his best, and didn’t reappear after the break, James Collins on instead.

Speaking afterwards, Jones said: “He was feeling his hamstring.

“You could see he wasn’t himself first half and I wish he’d told me earlier because we could have made a change which probably would have given us a little bit more impact.

“But he’s a soldier and he wants to soldier on and fight on, but it didn’t do us any favours really as he couldn’t really sprint, so he’s no good to us then.

“A fit Danny Hylton is brilliant for anyone, but a half fit one, no.

“Especially when it was a day like today where we needed that sharpness, we needed that real zest in the final third.

“We didn’t have quite it first half and that was disappointing, but second half, I thought we showed character and showed a real cutting edge about us.

“We scored three, but we should have scored more.”

Although his spurned a glorious chance to open his account for the campaign, missing a late penalty, Jones praised Collins for his appearance off the bench, after being dropped for the 2-0 win over Southend in midweek.

He continued: “Special mention to James Collins to be fair as he missed the pen, but he came on and that was a better performance from him today, that was more of the performance that we expect from James Collins when we brought him here.

“It was frustrating (the penalty miss), as it would have meant that the last six minutes would have been far easier, but I thought we saw out the game fantastically well.

“They had one opportunity really, when they came out and showed a bit of adventure, but I felt we pushed all day to try and get the goal.

“We’re an attacking side and we had to be patient, but you only have to see Man City v Wolves today to see what teams in a 4-1-4-1 can do to frustrate you.

“Man City have got a 350 million budget, so for us to do it at our level shows that we’re in a good place.”