Caldwell encouraged despite Exeter EFL Trophy exit

Gary Caldwell's side are 11th in League One, seven points off the play-off places

Gary Caldwell says he is encouraged by his side's performance in their 2-1 home defeat by Birmingham City in the Vertu Trophy.

Both sides made substantial changes from the line-ups when Blues won 2-0 at St James Park a fortnight before.

Former Exeter City loanee Luke Harris gave Birmingham a 22nd-minute lead, but Grecians skipper Pierce Sweeney scored a rare goal 10 minutes later to draw Exeter level.

Keshi Anderson got on the end of Ayumu Yokoyama's 78th-minute cross to secure a passage to the last 16 for the League One high-fliers having had a goal ruled out for offside moments earlier.

"I have to look at the performance. To make six changes and play against the best team in the league - no matter how many changes they made - they had to bring some of the big guns on in the second half," Caldwell told BBC Radio Devon.

"I thought we played extremely well. We had a different gameplan slightly to last time in terms of in possession - I thought it caused them a lot of problems.

"The disappointing thing is we gave two bad goals away and missed good opportunities to go and win the game.

"I'm never happy at losing games of football, but there is a lot we can take from the game.

"A lot of the players got minutes, the competition for places is getting bigger within the group and that gives me great hope moving into the Christmas period and moving into the second half of the season."