Town boss Roy Keane said that the 2-0 home defeat to Derby once again showed that his side isn’t ready to seal a position in the top six. The loss saw the Blues drop to seventh in the Championship table.
Keane said: "I thought we threatened to win the game, we threatened to score goals, but on top of that we gave two really poor goals away.
"A couple of weeks ago when we had Coventry at home we thought ‘can we take the next step forward?’, but clearly we’re not ready for that. We’re not ready to cement ourselves as a top six team.
"It was an important game for us tonight and we didn’t take the opportunity. Credit to Derby, they defended well, they took their goals well and they’ll be happy with that. But from our point of view, you’ve got to take these opportunities.”
The Blues boss, who kept his players in their dressing room for just over an hour after the match, is concerned that the number of defeats has increased in recent weeks: "We’ve lost to QPR at home, Coventry, at Watford, at Reading. We’re losing lots of games. We’re winning a lot more than we were last year but we’re losing more as well. As much as we were disappointed with the run last year, a lot of those matches were draws.
"We’re a mixed bag at the moment. I think what we’ve got learn as a group is that when we’re not quite at it, like tonight when I don’t think we were, we have to grind out a result. And we’ve not done that.”
Keane says central defender Gareth McAuley will miss Saturday’s home game against Barnsley due to an achilles injury which had been affecting him prior to the game and forced him off in the second half.
Also out are skipper David Norris, who is a week away from a return due to the ankle injury he sustained in the game against Millwall, while Grant Leadbitter is suspended having reached five bookings.
The Blues boss says this will give other members of his squad an opportunity to impress: "There’s a lot of boys waiting in the wings - Luke Hyam, Troy Brown, Ronan Murray - and they’ll get their opportunity this weekend because we’ve got injuries and suspensions.
"And when we had injuries and suspensions at the start of the season these boys never let us down, so I look forward to these young boys playing on Saturday and putting a good shift in. It won’t guarantee we’ll win the game, but they’ll go out and give 100%, and it’ll be interesting.
"Darren O’Dea and Mark Kennedy were on the bench tonight, they’ll have a good training session tomorrow, go easy Thursday and I’ll have a look on Friday to see whether they’re ready to come back into the team because we need a few players who are streetwise, especially if we’re losing Grant and Gareth.”
Derby boss Nigel Clough was delighted with the win, but felt the opening period was close: "I think it was touch and go first half, very even. We had a couple of good chances, they had a couple of long range efforts, but I thought having gone in 0-0 at half-time we came out for 20 minutes or so and played very well indeed.
"That’s taking into account what we had out there, in terms of midfielders playing at full-back, full-backs playing at centre-half. A little lad from Ilkeston Town playing in midfield, Ben Pringle, making his fifth start and an injured centre-half coming on up front for the last 20 minutes.
"I thought it was an incredible effort by the players, given all that. Absolutely incredible, coming to such a good side and a difficult place.”