Mick McCarthy was pleased with his side’s performance but not their defending after the 3-1 home defeat to Wigan Athletic. James McClean scored twice and Leon Barnett once for the visitors after Tommy Smith had put the Blues in front.
"I thought we played well, I’m really pleased with the lads but we just didn’t defend particularly well,” he said. "Certainly for the first one, we contributed to their goal.
"The second one, it isn’t like us defending a freekick like that and the third one it’s as plain as the nose on my face that Greeny’s lost it and they’ve broken on us. The difference was that they were clinical enough to punish us, and they’re a good team.”
At 1-1 Luke Hyam had a good chance to put Town back in front and McCarthy felt the game might have been different had the opportunity been taken: "I know they had a player injured, apparently, but you’ve got to finish them, score the goal and argue about it afterwards.
"I think that let them off the hook. And then conceding the goal just before half-time from the freekick as well.
"But I’m pleased with the way we’ve played, I’ve not been in there and been angry with them. People make mistakes but my lads are such an honest bunch, they try their hearts out.
"It happens, it just depends whether the team you’re playing against has got the ability to punish you, and they did.”
With Wigan having dropped out of the Premier League last season, the two clubs have very different budgets but McCarthy says he just gets on with the job and doesn’t whine about other bosses’ greater resources.
"There is a disparity, of course there is, but do you ever hear me come in and complain about that?” he said. "Our lads, my lads are brilliant and me and TC get the best out of them and they’ve been fantastic.
"We will keep on scrapping to get in that top six and who knows? They’re a good side and when we’ve contributed to the opportunities they’ve managed to score.
"In the second half we needed it to stay at 2-1, who knows we may well have got something but we gifted them a goal.”
He admits the loss has made reaching the top six tough but he’s not giving up: "It has [made it difficult but] it’s not impossible, is it?
"I’d settle for playing like that against the others but defending better, which has been a really strong point of ours, to be fair, so I’m not going to beat anybody up for that.
"There were some pluses. I thought Jonny Williams was terrific, but he’d run his race after 80 minutes as he’s not been playing at that level.”
Wigan manager Uwe Rosler was delighted with his team’s eighth win on the trot in all competitions: "I’m very pleased with the victory and pleased with the performance and the level that we have shown again.
"I think everybody who was on the pitch today put in an at least seven out of 10 performance and that is what we need in this league to be where we want to be.
"We knew what we would face. I was a bit surprised that Mick had only played one striker, we had prepared for two.
"We knew about the style of play and we coped with it very well. The first goal was unnecessary, I felt, but we responded very well.
"It was very important that we bounced back straight away. The first goal and the third goal were exactly how we wanted to play.
"They squeezed us, they wanted to play on the second ball, so they had to stay high up with their back four and the plan was to go in beyond them.
"We did that very well and the first and third goals were examples of how we wanted to play. I’m very happy that the players performed at such a consistent level.”