Town boss Paul Lambert admitted that his side’s performance as they were beaten 4-0 at Preston North End was the worst display since he took charge at Portman Road at the end of October.
"We were nowhere near it, we were really really poor, we never turned up, got what we deserved and I’ve got no excuses,” he said. "We never turned up and that’s the worst game we’ve had since we’ve come in.”
Town were already two down at the break, were there some home truths at the break? "Yes, there was that and at full-time. It wasn’t good enough. I understand the reality of relegation and things like that, when that hits you it’s a blow.
"But there are other things you’re still hanging on to, something that you can try and chase but that was nowhere near the level.
"You always wonder how the players will react when reality sinks in but that’s not acceptable. That’s not the way my teams play and it won’t happen again.
"They know exactly my feelings on the whole thing. You can’t play the game of football if you’re going to stand off people and not make a challenge and do the ugly side of the game, when you don’t run and you don’t work. I think we were outplayed in every aspect of the game.”
The Blues manager felt his team was fortunate only to concede four: "Absolutely. I’m not going to stand here and sugarcoat it, it’s not good enough and we’ve had people travelling a long way to watch us play. The game I would say is our worst, without a doubt.”
Lambert fielded a side without any of the loanees, a team which he might be able to select on the opening day of next season, however, he says the display doesn’t worry him looking longer term.
"That one game won’t tell me everything, it’s over the course of the five months we’ve been here,” he insisted.
"You can go through every one of them, they never performed, whereas for the last four or five months we’ve played really, really well.
"That game won’t tell me anything I don’t really know about the team. You get performances where sometimes nothing goes right for you, it’s important you bounce back and thank God we’ve got a game on Monday.”
He reiterated that the display shouldn’t be looked at in isolation and viewed as a big concern.
"No, that would be crazy,” he added. "So I forget every other good game they’ve played? That’s crazy.
"That’s a human nature thing. If you play 19 great games and the 20th’s really poor, people automatically think about the poor one, they don’t think about the 19 good ones you’ve played.
"That’s not going to tell me anything at all. I’ve got a group of young lads who will burst at the seams and be ready to get going and the quicker the season finishes the better.
"We’ve still got three hard games, two we can have a say in who goes up and who doesn’t. That won’t happen again.”
Regarding the next three games against Swansea at Portman Road on Monday, then Sheffield United next Saturday and Leeds at home on the final day, he said: "If we play like that we’re not going to win any of them, that’s the bottom line.
"But if we do what we’ve done in the previous games then we can definitely cause them trouble. You can’t sugarcoat it, that was nowhere near good enough.”
Lambert subbed Josh Emmanuel at half-time, which he says was as the 21-year-old had had a tough first 45 minutes.
"I thought he struggled,” Lambert said. "Again, he’s a young lad who needs working on. The lad will be better, that’s the worst he’s probably been. But it wasn’t just Josh, as a team we weren’t good enough.
"That’s development for you. The lad just came back in January time, it’s development, he’s missed a lot of football. There’s a lot to work with and a lot of hard work to come."
Preston manager Alex Neil felt it was an important win for his team following a run of four successive defeats, the most recent a 4-1 reverse at West Brom last Saturday.
"After the last week it was important we came out and put on a good performance and put things right," the former Canaries boss said. "We played well and got four goals so I’m really pleased with that.”
"I felt we played well. We had good quality at times when we needed it and Callum [Robinson] was involved in all four goals so I think that shows his importance to us.
"He’s a good player, he is one of our key players. What he did today, not every player can do. He had the quality to damage them today.”