Town boss Paul Hurst admitted the Blues put in probably their worst performance of the season as they were beaten 2-0 at home by QPR. Town are still without a home win this season with their last victory at Portman Road the 1-0 defeat of Barnsley back in April in Mick McCarthy’s final match in charge.
"We weren’t good enough, bottom line,” Hurst said. "We were second best. It’s another game where ultimately we certainly didn’t help ourselves yet again and a combination of that and not a good enough reaction overall to going behind made for a very disappointing afternoon.”
Asked whether the type of defensive errors which again led to both goals are tough for a boss to take, he said: "At the end of the day I’m the manager and we all know that whoever’s the manager of the team gets criticised and that’s part and parcel of the job. I understand that and I can accept that.
"Those things, the mistakes, I’ve never been involved in a season - and we’re not even a third of the way through yet - where there have been so many mistakes in that period of time, as a manager or as a player, certainly from memory, admittedly my playing days were some time ago.
"That just makes the task more difficult. And ultimately goals do change games or change moods, change feelings, outlooks, everything.
"There were 77 minutes left plus injury time today were still left when we scored, so there was still lots of time left.
"The penalty was certainly a kick in the teeth right on half-time, not that we had particularly shown signs of getting back in the game, but while it’s 1-0, we’ve had games here where that has changed [from that scoreline] and we’ve seen a much different second half.
"In the second half today, there were naturally some moments which were slightly better but nowhere near enough in terms of realistically getting back in the game.”
He admitted that having got the first win of the season at Swansea, the defeat was more disappointing, although he pointed out after the win at the Liberty Stadium that result wouldn’t be a panacea.
"Obviously sat here now, I certainly wish would have played sooner to see if it would have been any different but overall the mood’s been good,” he said.
"As I said at the time, one victory doesn’t suddenly make you a good team or change everything, but you certainly hope it would have given the players a little bit of confidence and it felt that way around the place looking at them.
"But it didn’t reflect looking at it today, a lot of the same sort of things were happening, misplaced passes, miscontrols, but I have to say today I just felt even the absolute basics of football we were second best.
"We didn’t win enough headers, and I don’t mean as in Freddie Sears, I don’t expect him to out-jump the centre-backs, but in the middle of the pitch.
"How many tackles did we win? How many times did we drive with the ball compared to them to get to those second balls? We didn’t do enough of that, so it was going to be a massive ask to try and get anything from the game when I think there were a lot of things wrong in truth.”
The crowd showed their frustration with boos at the end of each half, which Hurst says he was aware of but feels the Portman Road faithful are far from the harshest supporters.
"Of course, I’ve heard that a couple of times but nothing that players shouldn’t be able to handle,” he added.
"That was just mentioned in the dressing room downstairs. I think the lads that have been around a little bit know that the crowd are far from the worst that they’re going to play in front of in terms of adding pressure and being really disgruntled.
"They show that they are but a lot of them show it in a certain way and not like you get at some places.
"So from that point of view, if they can’t play here then I think they’ll really struggle pretty much anywhere because I think they are willing the team and the players to do well.”
Quizzed on whether that adds pressure going into the next four games ahead of the November international break, he responded: "We’ve got to try to make sure it doesn’t. It doesn’t put us in the best of spirits going to Leeds on Wednesday but ultimately that’s football.
"There’ll be lots of teams good and bad that have days like today in terms of the performance where they just have a bad day and things aren’t right.
"Again, it’s how you react to that, how often it happens. You can look at the table and look at the results, but I genuinely, don’t think we’ve been that bad that often to be where we are in the league, I’ve said about coming out on the wrong side of things. So today was disappointing from that point of view.”
Hurst admitted it was the poorest display of the season at Portman Road if not anywhere: "Certainly the worst at home and probably overall as well. I think at Hull we had a spell where we were better, in truth, and could have quite easily got back in the game. I understand there was frustration today, 100 per cent.”
But he says those two matches aren’t typical of the season as a whole: "Not overall, but at the same time, we’ve got to try and make things happen, haven’t we? As a group, as a squad and I was hoping that having had the victory at Swansea, not changing everything, but getting that monkey off our back that we spoke about, having that confidence and belief to try and make things happen.
"I’ve opened it up in the dressing room and we’ve had a discussion and people have got their own opinions.
"I’ve had my say in there naturally. One thing that came from the players is we can’t keep making it hard with the mistakes we’re making.
"No one goes out to make a mistake but at the same time it does make it a lot more difficult. And when you’re in that sort of run you don’t seem to get too much the other way and it’s difficult to stop that from happening.”
Regarding the mood of the dressing room discussion, was it frank and loud or a more measured debate? "A bit of both some measured, some a bit louder, some look as though they’re a bit in shock almost.
"But let’s not kid ourselves, we were second favourites to be relegated at the start of the season, so we are clearly are not the best team in the Championship.
"We’ve got to do everything we can to make it extremely difficult for the opposition first and foremost to give ourselves a chance of winning games of football and at the minute all we’re doing is giving teams a helping hand more often than not.
"Even at Swansea we showed a much better reaction but the first goal was more a freak, an own goal that I don’t think JD could score again if he tried.
"We’ve got to change that and it’s only the players that can do that because we’re obviously in a hole and we’ve got to try and do everything we can to get out of that.”
Hurst dismissed the idea of a senior figure more experienced at this level coming in as a director of football to help the Blues get out of that hole.
"I find the level thing is not what this is about, that’s my personal view,” he said. "I can accept people have opinions.
"Again, if it was an experienced manager sat here or upstairs, does he suddenly stop the mistakes happening? I think if that did happen, it would be coincidence rather than anything else. No, I don’t really see personally any reason to do that, so I can’t see that happening.”
With the fans starting to get on the team’s back and the team back to bottom of the table, is he worried about his job? "No, I’m kind of past that stage. I know what I’m doing and the effort and also just generally, ultimately working with the group of players that I have got to try get the best out of.
"Are we managing to do that? Clearly at the minute, no. As I said, we’re all in this together, I’ll take my responsibility but the players have to take theirs as well and I think a lot of those, if they were honest and were sat in front you, they would say that they can do better than they’re doing at the minute. That’s part and parcel of football.
"You’re reliant as a manager, when things are going well, the lads are playing well, when things are going bad, they’re not playing well. It’s that kind of give them that confidence or give them that kick up the backside to do better because we certainly need to.’
QPR boss Steve McClaren was pleased with his side’s victory, although felt they had chances to have won more comfortably.
"Very professional, that’s what we said at the beginning, that this is an opportunity and if you’re professional and do your job we’ve got a chance of winning and that’s what they did right from the first whistle, they were ready,” he said.
"We controlled the game, got the goals and saw the game through. A clean sheet, two goals, should have been more and we’ve started the week well. Recover, Tuesday.”
Regarding the first goal McClaren was adamant it should be credited to corner-taker Luke Freeman rather than as a Dean Gerken own goal.
"It’s Freeman’s goal, it was direct, it was going straight in without him [Gerken] touching it.
"[Assistant coach] Matty Gardiner and [assistant manager] John Eustace work really hard on set plays. They’re very important in this league, for and against.
"And with [goalkeeper-coach] Gavin Ward they work tirelessly and we work a lot on set plays and every time we get one we turn around to Matty and Jon and every time we defend one we turn round to Gavin and say, ‘Well done boys’.
"They can make a massive difference. How many games do you see at a weekend and the first goal or the most important goal is a set play? You saw that in the World Cup with England and in this Championship it is very important.
"[The second goal], the same again [from a Freeman corner], it was a definite penalty, well done to the fourth official for spotting that.
"We were a little disappointed not to see the game out easier than we did. You’re always susceptible to conceding one goal which could have lit the fire but credit to the organisation of the team, we kept a clean sheet but we do need to score more goals from the opportunities that we’re creating.”