Town boss Mick McCarthy admitted that his side didn’t defend the corners from which Aden Flint scored Bristol City’s two first half goals well enough as the Blues fell to a 2-1 defeat at Ashton Gate.
"It always is [frustrating] when you lose,” McCarthy said. "We didn’t defend them well enough.
"But on the counter side of that, I have to say, anybody watching them and teaching kids how to put corner kicks in and getting a bit of movement with big fellas, they were magnificent deliveries, which I can appreciate.
"I don’t like it because we’ve conceded but credit where it’s due, they were so difficult to deal with.”
McCarthy lined his side up in a rarely used 3-5-2 system, which the Town manager said was making the best use of the players available to him, given the lengthy injury list.
"Absolutely, to try and keep two strikers up front first and foremost and not go 4-3-3, having lost Skusey, Luke Hyam and Dougie, it’s a pretty fearsome three that for us in the middle of the park,” he added.
"It just left us a little fragile in that area as much as anything. I tried just to stiffen that up while trying to keep two strikers on the pitch.
"We’ve got the players for [3-5-2]. The three centre-backs can cope with it comfortably, a left-sider and a right-sider. We do suffer at times from having a left footer on the right-hand side but Tommy deserves to play.”
Later in the half he moved his team to 4-4-2: "We’ve gone behind, it’s needs-must then. That’s not me being tactically astute or clever or anything. I thought we did better off that, actually, we handled it better.”
Loanee Ben Pringle and and recent signing Kevin Foley were handed their debuts and McCarthy was happy with their performances.
"I was pleased with Ben,” he said. "He’s not played for quite a while, December. I was pleased with his contribution.
"It was difficult to come into that game when he’s not coming into ‘my team’, he’s not just replacing one and we’ve got all the other 10 players in there. He’s coming in when it’s been decimated a little bit.
"I thought he did well and I thought Kevin Foley was excellent and even better still when he went into midfield, I thought he had a great performance then.”
Regarding Brett Pitman, who netted his 10th goal of the season, once again from the bench, McCarthy says he can understand why the ex-Bristol City man is less than keen to be known as a super-sub.
"He wants to play,” the Town boss added. "He certainly helped us when he came on. And it was a great goal, to be fair to him. He won’t like the super-sub tag, I guessed that.”
McCarthy turned down the likelihood of him returning to the loan market with Jonathan Douglas back from suspension ahead of the next game at home to Hull a week on Tuesday and Luke Hyam closing in on a return from his calf problem.
"Dougie will be fit and I’m hoping Luke Hyam will be fit this week,” he continued.
Also on the mend is keeper Dean Gerken after his shoulder injury, but the ex-Colchester man seems unlikely to go straight back into the side with Bartosz Bialkowski in excellent form in the last two games in particular.
"He was targeting the Hull game, but I’ve had a keeper who has been magnificent again,” the Blues boss added. "We’re very lucky, I’ve got two really good goalkeepers.”
The result sees the Blues drop to eighth and McCarthy says he's as frustrated as supporters by Town's recent form which has seen them win just one of their last six games in all competitions.
"Absolutely, we want to be pushing for the top six and I’m frustrated and agitated myself and we want to get back to those lofty heights, but we’re going to have to play better than we did and defend the corners better than we did.”
Bristol City boss Lee Johnson was delighted with the way his first game in charge went: "It was good. I expected it, to be honest, as far as the tempo and the speed of our attacking play.
"The lads have been great in the first week, I’ve got some principles into them and I thought we were good value for it.
"Their keeper’s made a couple of great saves, we’ve had lots of opportunities, corners and decent play.”
He added: "I was pleased, it was heart in the mouth in the last 10 minutes, but I think if you watch the DVD back we were pretty comfortable.
"There are a few things I need to integrate, certainly the defensive system and some of the recovery runs that we make. But as a general rule, I can’t be too greedy, I’m delighted for a win against a very good side.
"The front two had died a little bit for us and had allowed them to get up a head of steam a little bit.
"We made the subs at the right time just like last week and they were effective. I thought they got hold of it, they gave us a platform and Kieran and Aaron worked their socks off up there which meant they couldn’t just pile balls in our box. A lot of it was pretty good and we move on now.”