Town midfielder Cole Skuse admitted the second half performance during Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Brentford was hard to take and says the squad will be hurting. Bees home debutant John Egan netted in the 48th and 56th minutes to seal the win with the Blues subsequently unable to get themselves back into the match.
"It’s hard, especially being an older head in the dressing room, you take a bit more responsibility,” Skuse said.
"It’s tough to swallow, it’s never easy. When you get on your phone and your friends and your partner are ringing you asking how you got on and you’ve got to tell them that we were poor.
"It’s tough and it’ll be hard on Sunday to watch the game back to break it down and find out why we didn’t give ourselves a chance to get back in the game. A tough one to swallow.”
Skuse says he and his team-mates take pride in their performances and don’t take displays such as Saturday’s lightly.
"We’ll be hurting, it’s never from want of trying,” the Bristolian added. "You’re always going to have days where teams will have the edge, it’s just so hard to go from the first-half display where we were coming in at half-time thinking it was 0-0 but we’ve done well, we’ve played some good stuff, to come out in the second half and fold like that. It’s tough.”
Like boss Mick McCarthy, Skuse was pleased with the way the team played before half-time: "It was that horrible old cliche of very much a game of two halves. We came off at the break at 0-0, they might say they had some chances, but we were slightly disappointed that it was 0-0, we played some really good stuff.
"We played in the right areas, when the ball broke we got it down and played some decent stuff, created some chances and we had a really good first half. In the second half we just folded.”
The 30-year-old admitted that the players were disappointed by the manner of Egan’s goals: "We were, they were goals we can avoid. Goals we pride ourselves on avoiding really.
"Especially after the first goal went in, we needed to show a bit more drive to get back into the game.
"Even at 2-0 you’ve got to fancy yourself to get back in the game. But in the second half we just didn’t have that drive.”
Why does he believe that was the case? "It’s always hard straight after a game to put your finger on why, hence we’ll be in on Sunday morning going through the video, we’ll be breaking it down.
"It can be the finest things, the smallest of percentages that don’t give you that chance to get back in the game.”
In addition to picking out mistakes, the former Bristol City man says positives from the game will also be highlighted.
"We’ll always break down the game and find out the points we can improve and we’ll try and end with stuff that we’ve done very well because you can’t just neglect the things you've done well and over-emphasise the things you’ve done wrong, you’ve still got to find the balance.
"I thought we played some good stuff in the first half, stuff we’ve been working on, so we’ll be trying to put it right on Tuesday [at Wolves].”
Skuse is confident the squad is capable of competing during the season ahead: "It’s hardly any different to the squad we’ve had in the season where we finished sixth and seventh last season.
"We’ve added a couple. We’re very, very disappointed with the second half today because we know the squad we’ve got and that that shouldn’t be happening, the display in the second half shouldn’t be happening because we know we’ve got a good enough squad to challenge at the top.”
After last week’s lacklustre first half against Barnsley, Grant Ward turned the game around with his remarkable debut hat-trick, but Skuse says Town can’t expect miracles from the 21-year-old too often.
"We’re not expecting him to do that every week,” he continued. "He’s a fantastic player, he and Conor Grant are both younger lads, they’ve got bags and bags of ability and they’ve been at top clubs, Tottenham and Everton, for a reason. We shouldn’t expect him to dig us out every week, it’s not going to be the case.
"It’s one of those days, it’s early on in the season, there are a lot of games ago, but the second half wasn’t good enough from us.”
Regarding Conor Grant, also 21, who is on a season-long loan from the Toffees, Skuse added: "He’s got bags of ability, he’s got a great left foot, he was obviously on loan at Doncaster last year and they were over the moon with him.
"We’ve done very well to bring him in, he’s a great boy and, like I say, he’s got bags of ability. They’ll both be great signings for us.”
Does he expect further signings before the window shuts at the end of the month? "That’s nothing we talk about really. The window’s still open, it’s something you’d have to ask the manager or the coaching staff about.”
Reflecting on this year’s Championship as a whole, Skuse added: "I know we probably say the same every year, the toughest league we’ve been in, but this probably is.
"I’ve been in the Championship a little while and if you look at the way football as a whole has evolved in terms of money, it’s filtering down from the Premier League.
"Big clubs like Newcastle, Villa, [people paying fees of £12 million at Championship level] would have been unheard of a few years ago and it’s making the league even harder.
"But there’s no reason why we can’t challenge like we have for the last few years.”