Manager Paul Lambert has revealed that he gave his players a few days off at the start of the week after relegation to League One was confirmed.
Asked how the last few days have been, Lambert said: "It’s like anything, when the reality hits it’s sore, which is normal. Again the support has been great for everybody.
"We gave the lads a couple of days off because there’s no point coming in here with your face on the floor and it’s not good for the players, and it’s not good for staff.
"Again, they’re a young group, and whether they realise majorly what they’re involved in at the minute nobody knows, but we’ll bounce back that’s for sure.”
Lambert took over at Town at the end of October with the Blues already bottom of the table. Looking back, would he have done anything differently? "We had a chat on Saturday night after [the Birmingham match] and were there one or two things could we have done any better? I don’t know.
"We’d been playing really well, and we’ve just not finished all that good work off and the football’s been really, really good.
"I think it’s the draws that’s killed us, if we came away winning seven games out of the last 10, which I think our play merited and we deserved to get, then we’d have been out the situation.
"We’ve just not taken the chances when they’ve come, we’ve not defended well enough at certain times of the games and we’ve put pressure on everybody connected.
"So it’s an anxious thing but performance-wise I don’t think I could get any more than the way they’ve played.”
Did he expect to keep Town up? "I always do, I never think negatively at all, I just think we’re going to go and win games and to be fair we’ve played on the front foot, we’ve done everything to try and win games, we’ve had chances to see games through.
"We’ve had major errors, crazy errors that have been made, we’ve hit the post, we’ve done everything, but not turned draws into wins.
"But that’s football and we are where we are. We have to go down a level, but I’ve said before the club is in a really good place with a lot of things that’s going on.”
He says the squad have to learn from the experience: "They do, and that’s what’s going to happen throughout their careers. They’re still young guys, one or two are in the twilight of their careers, but there’s a helluva lot of young players here that have got their whole career in front of them, and it’s going to be a great experience for them, a great ride for them.
"As I said before, the big thing in football is if you’ve got the support behind you, and if it’s like what it is then it’s a big help.”
Asked if promotion is the minimum requirement for next season, he responded: "Nobody knows, I’ll speak to Marcus, but we’ll give it everything we’ve got, I don’t have a crystal ball, but we’ll be exciting and full of energy and full of hunger and drive as we’re going to have a vibrant support behind us.
"And, like I said after the game, if this club starts to win games and keeps getting the fans in that stadium, you won’t get a ticket because it’ll be that busy. So I think it’ll be great as long as we can turn those performances into wins.”
Is it important to bounce back at the first attempt? "Any division is hard no matter what year you’re in whatever league you’re in. Anybody that says the league is easy are the ones that don’t win it.
"It’s going to be really difficult, but we’re in a really good place, and we’ll try everything we can to try and bounce back as quick as we can.”