"He is big, powerful, has something sometimes we are missing – that power to hold the ball, to go into the space, to head the ball at corners.

"Sometimes I've seen him play as a winger so we could play him there. He has good character and can give us a lot of things."

Karanka must have wished Cosgrove was on the pitch as his side made it 10 games without a home win.

The 47-year-old continued: "A good point? No, because I think we should have won. But at least we tried much more than them to win, especially in the second half.

"We had chances until the last seconds but couldn't score the winning goal.

"In the second half we had a good reaction, we wanted to score the second goal, the team was hungry and we wanted to win."

While Cosgrove watched on, another potential striker recruit – Hibernian's 13-goal top scorer Kevin Nisbet, 23 – was left out of the squad that played at Dundee United.

"He is another one scoring and there would be a lot of teams interested in him. Let's see what happens," said Karanka.

Coventry boss Mark Robins was delighted with the response from his side after they conceded first.

"I thought our goal and our reaction to giving away the penalty was brilliant," he said.

"The goal we scored was an outstanding one and we created some really good openings to have won the game.

"We were unfortunate not to stick one of them away – it was a brilliant move for Max Biamou's chance. Unfortunately he didn't manage to stick it away.

"But I don't think they created a massive amount and I don't think they did a great deal."

Regarding the penalty, Robins admitted he had no complaints about the decision.

"I just think Sam (McCallum) dived in. "We had a disappointment (with the penalty) but we got on with it.

"But some of our passing movements they couldn't live with and I thought we were good and unfortunate not to get a second goal."

Jeremie Bela's 17th-minute penalty – the ninth Coventry have conceded this season – gave Birmingham the perfect start after Ivan Sanchez was tripped by McCallum, but Gustavo Hamer levelled 12 minutes later.

Hamer hammered home from just inside the box after Callum O'Hare kept Biamou's pass in play, shrugged off Adam Clayton and fed Ben Sheaf to square.

Birmingham wasted numerous chances as headers from Mikel San Jose, Scott Hogan (twice) and Harlee Dean were either off target or too close to goalkeeper Ben Wilson, while Bela blasted just wide.

But Coventry missed a sitter as Biamou rolled the ball wide from a great opening.

Blues almost snatched it at the end when Lukas Jutkiewicz's shot on the turn was blocked and a header from Marc Roberts looped over.