Town’s unfortunate early-season tendency to concede soft goals will not last, Christophe Berra has promised.
The central defender echoed the comments of manager Mick McCarthy when he said the only goal of last week’s derby defeat by Norwich, when indecision by Dean Gerken and Cole Skuse allowed Lewis Grabban to head home, was typical of several leaked in the opening games of the new campaign.
Berra, 29, said: "We’ve seen replays of the goal, obviously, and to lose a game by such a poor goal was very disappointing. I don’t think there was much in the match up until that point and a little mistake changed the whole aspect of the game.
"In the second half I know they had a couple of chances on the counter attack because we were a bit more open but if we’d have gone in at 0-0 at half-time I don’t think there would have been much in it really.
"We had a couple of chances ourselves but at the moment little mistakes are really costing us in games. I don’t think any team has cut us open — it’s just little individual errors really.
"Norwich have a good squad full of good players who have just come down from the Premier League and their budget, compared to ours, is totally different.
"Apart from the goal it could have ended up 0-0 but the better teams tend to take their chances.”
Berra is unable to pinpoint the reason for Town’s defensive frailties but added: "I don’t really know why it is happening and it’s not like us. But it happens — I’ll make mistakes as well and everyone makes them throughout the course of the season.
"It seems to be a case of them all coming at once and teams have punished us. Sometimes you get away with it but at the moment teams are putting the ball in the back of the net. Someone was saying we are one point better off than at the same stage last season so we’ll take that as one positive.
"I don’t think teams have been outplaying us but I think they have just been fortunate in front of goal and we haven’t. It’s just something that can happen, especially to defenders, and right now it seems we are getting punished for little things.
"It happens throughout every season and even to the top teams in the world. That’s football for you and we move on. There are another 42 games to go and we’ll get our luck as well.”
Berra admitted conceding goals was hard to accept and added: "As defenders we pride ourselves on the goals we keep out but every team defends from the front and throughout the whole team.
"We’ve got good characters and good players in the squad and if we show the same consistent performances we showed last season we’ll have a good chance again this season.”