Town boss Mick McCarthy was disappointed with the Blues’ 3-2 defeat at Colchester, feeling his side didn’t play well enough in the second half. Town were twice in front against the U’s via Kevin Bru and David McGoldrick (pen), but late goals from Alex Gilbey - who had netted Colchester’s earlier equaliser - and Gavin Massey won the game.
"It was just another bit of fitness,” McCarthy said. "I don’t like losing games. Fair play to Colchester, they won it in the end and good luck to them.
"Certainly in the second half, we didn’t play well enough, which was strange with the players that went on. But it’s pre-season.”
He added: "It always irks, I never like to lose. I can’t say we deserved to win the game really. We had a spell at 2-1 where we were playing but we emptied the midfield for two of the goals, I don’t know why.
"I think we were running about just playing football and not doing it properly. Fair play to them.”
He was disappointed that the result put a dampener on what was shaping up to be a good evening for the 2,372 Blues supporters who made the trip across the border into Essex.
"I just said to them, the only thing that really annoyed me... actually a few things annoyed me, but what really annoyed me was that our fans were having a good night and we’ve annoyed them by getting beaten by our nearest and dearest.
"It doesn’t matter what we think, it won’t have any bearing on the result when we play Brentford away [on the opening day] or the performance because it’s a league game.
"They want to see us win and they were enjoying it. You can see the relationship how quickly it can come and go. It took a long time to get all those crowds in last season, some really good performances and you can soon lose them if we play like we did in the last 15 minutes.”
Cole Skuse missed out with an achilles injury but McCarthy says it’s not serious, while Bartosz Bialkowski is ill: "I’m hoping Skusey will train on Thursday. Bart is poorly.”
Trialists Giles Coke and Larsen Touré have both impressed and the Blues manager will be taking a longer look at them: "Cokey’s all right, I thought he did well. I’m quite pleased with him.
"We’re a little bit bare in that department, so he’s fine. He’s going to stay and be involved on Saturday.”
Regarding Guinean international Touré, he added: "I quite like him, actually. He was knackered after 30 minutes, he’s not been playing and he trained hard yesterday.
"It was difficult for him but I like what I saw yesterday and I’m going to keep him and have a look at him.”
The Town manager said he withdrew ex-Colchester man Freddie Sears as he’d previously been suffering with a niggle: "He had a bit of a thigh injury so I took him off at half-time. He’s all right but he was injured at the start of the week.”
He says Teddy Bishop is continuing to have a problem with shin splints: "He’s struggling a bit with his shins, which he was at the end of last season. I think I saw that in the second half, he didn’t really get about.
"He’s having to look after them and train when he can and that’s not enough at this stage of the season.”