Boss Mick McCarthy admitted that his side were “absolutely bashed” by Fulham, who left Portman Road having beaten Town 2-0, the second-placed Blues’ first Championship defeat of the season.
"Call the police, there’s just been a murder gone on the pitch,” McCarthy said ruefully after the Cottagers repeated the scoreline and performance from last season’s corresponding fixture on Boxing Day to claim their first Championship victory of this campaign.
"I think sometimes you have to take your hat off to the opposition and say, ‘Well done’. It’s easy for me to criticise ours, we’ve had a brilliant month, 12 points from our games and we’ve come up against a team today who were just streets in front of us and have absolutely bashed us, with the ball, without the ball, they were just very good.”
McCarthy dismissed the suggestion that his injury and illness-hit squad had run out of steam at the end of a tough first month.
"It’s a one-off performance,” he said. "I had the 10 that played last week and played ever so well, Fulham are just very good. They’re tops.
"They’ve spent a few quid, they’ve got some good players, to be fair. And in the end I end up with square pegs in round holes because we’ve had a great performance with our front four [at Millwall and at home to Brentford], all the strikers on the pitch and Wardy.
"He’s not a central midfield player and Waggy’s not a wide right player particularly and Freddie does his wide left role, but that team had to play [rather than me changing it making] it more negative to try and play against them.
"I thought we’d have played better, I don’t think we did well with the ball. My disappointment was that we didn’t make the most of the scant opportunities that we had. Even when we won it back we gave it back too easily. That would be my criticism.”
Does he mean he had to play that team due to the lack of personnel or because of the performances and results in previous games? "A bit of both, I’ve got 10 fit first-team players, you’ve seen the bench.
"Am I going to put in any of those that were on the bench instead of the players that were on the pitch? No. But maybe if Emyr and Tom and people were fit, and knowing full well how good their three midfield players are, I might have been able to combat that a bit better. But that team’s been great, so I can’t complain.”
McCarthy sees Fulham, who finished sixth last season, as one of the division’s play-off contenders: "No doubt. I think they’ve just been in our coaches’ office, I think I missed Slavisa, which I’m sad about because I like him and it would have been nice to see him.
"They’ve said they’ve done both sides of the game today. One thing they’ve been criticised for has been that they’re playing all the nice football but not doing their pressing and their tackling and the work rate. Well, I think they had everything today.
"Both centre-backs were pretty solid and they’re a really good team. I do think they’ll be promotion candidates again.
"They lost in the play-offs last season, we finished 16th and they were play-off candidates. It’s a bad day today but I go back to the month we’ve had, we’d have taken 12 points.”
He added: "But that doesn’t stop it being a disappointing day today. I think it just shows how far away removed we are from them.
"But they’ve spent a few quid, the two lads up front cost £13 million between them. They’ve got a really good squad of players, they were excellent today.”
McCarthy hopes to have some of his injured players available again after the international break when the Blues face QPR at Loftus Road.
"Tom Adeyemi will be playing [for the U23s] on Tuesday, Luke Hyam will play again and then will play again at Hillsborough and some of the others will get a game, Danny Rowe and Bersant Celina will get a game in those matches. But I’ve no sign of the centre-backs coming back, so I’m still hoping to get one.”
Is he confident of getting someone in before Thursday’s 11pm transfer deadline? "Yeah, of course.”
Fulham boss Slavisa Jokanovic was pleased with his team’s performance but more that they had taken their chances.
"We played a very good football match,” he said. "My team dominated the game, played with confidence, moved the ball and created the chances.
"I believe we should have scored some more goals in the first half, we haven’t been clinical at the beginning of the Championship.
"But we scored the second goal at the right time to minimise our risk and to win the game we tried to control and kill the game.
"After the start of the season when we didn’t find a way to win a game, we can be very happy with our performance but the end product is more important and that we go back to London with the three points.”