Town boss Paul Lambert wasn’t too downcast after the Blues’ 2-0 defeat at Accrington Stanley, their first league defeat since April, but says they now have to bounce back when they face Rotherham United at Portman Road on Wednesday.
"We’ve been unbelievable, but I said we’d lose at some time,” Lambert said. "We’ve been absolutely fantastic, I’ve got nothing by praise for the team. I’m proud of the way they’ve gone about it, we’re still top.
"If I’m disappointed when we’re top of the league, then there’s a lot worse things to be disappointed about. I knew we’d lose at some stage and today I don’t think we did enough to win.
"I don’t think we started well at all, I don’t think we started the game well and that was the catalyst to us losing the goal.
"I thought we were too slow, we never moved it the way we normally moved it, never had the same intensity and we lost a goal and then we lost a penalty. The second half was better without it being great.”
Regarding Toto Nsiala, who conceded the penalty which led to Accrington’s second goal on his return to the team and was subbed at half-time, Lambert added: "Toto’s been great, he’s trained really hard to get back in the side and obviously down to James Wilson’s suspension we put him back in, but no blame attached to Toto.”
Town twice had the ball cleared from the line with appeals that it had crossed on both occasions, but Lambert couldn’t comment definitively.
"I don’t know,” he said. "I’ll have to have a look at them again, I’ve not really seen them. It’s difficult to see them from where we were.”
The Blues boss was similarly unsure about the incident in which Armando Dobra was sent off.
"I don’t think he’s kicked out at him, people were saying he’s kicked out, I don’t think that’s happened but I’ll need to see it again,’ he said.
"It was far away from where I was standing, I haven’t seen it, only from our angle, I’ve not seen the Sky angle so I can’t really comment until I’ve seen it again.”
Disappointing result today, I’d like to apologise for the red card we go again🔵⚪︖ Armando dobra (@armando_dobra) October 20, 2019
Quizzed on Sean McConville’s two-footed challenge on Gwion Edwards, which yielded only a yellow card, Lambert said: "I think there were some tackles there that merited a booking, some that didn’t.
"I thought the referee was maybe inconsistent with a lot of things there, but that’s the game. Thankfully [Edwards] didn’t get a bad one, which can happen.”
Asked whether his squad should have been able to manage better when the likes of Wilson, James Norwood, Flynn Downes and Kane Vincent-Young are missing, he responded: "You cope with it, because we have coped with it. One defeat we’ve had, we’ve had one defeat. It’s an unbelievable run we’ve been on and the club’s in a really good place.
"You take your medicine, you dust yourselves down and you go again. We don’t have a divine right to win every game, you take your hit and you go again.”
He added: "The lads that came in, Andre, Toto and Gwion, I trust them 100 per cent. I don’t have any problem with those lads playing at all.
"They’ve done great for me in the past and they will do great for me in the future. It’s the game, sometimes you get injuries, but that wasn’t the reason we lost today.”
Wilson will be back from his one-match ban on Wednesday - although Dobra is now suspended for three games - and Lambert says Norwood (groin surgery), Vincent-Young (also groin) and Downes (hip) will be assessed.
"We’ll see how they are, the guys,” he added. "James did a little warm-up, he’s doing well, he’s doing great. Kane we’ll have to have a look at and Flynn as well.”
With Downes absent, Emyr Huws had seemed the most likely option to come into midfield but Andre Dozzell instead started.
"I’m not sure Emyr at the minute can play two games back to back because of the injuries he’s had, and to keep him to the maximum level [when he does play],” Lambert explained.
"That’s why I played Andre, he’s been playing really well, I don’t have a problem with Andre playing at all.
"It’s the same with Will Keane, can we get two games out of him back to back? It’s a big ask for the two lads and I’ve got to be fair to the lads themselves, I don’t want to reinjure them.”"
Keane was perhaps surprisingly left on the bench in the second half but Lambert says the former Hull man could be involved against the Millers.
"As I said, we’ve a massive game again on Wednesday,” he said. "Whether James is going to be fit yet, Will will come to the reckoning for that and back to back games would be a big ask, he’s not done that for a long, long time.”
Overall, he says he’s not too downbeat despite the Blues’ first league defeat since the penultimate day of last season at Sheffield United.
"Disappointed to lose, but my God, we’ve been in incredible form, we’ve been relentless, we’ve handled everything that’s come our way,” he continued.
"There’s no team alive, look at Man City the other week, it happens to the best of teams. We’ve been in really relentless form. And we’re still top of the league. It’s not doom and gloom, that’s for sure.”
He added: "You bounce back, that’s how you do it but our form has been unbelievable. We’ve been in really good form, we’re a really good side and we’ve just been beaten on a given day, which I knew would happen, whether it was going to be here or in 30 games’ time.
"I’ve been involved in football a long, long time. I’ve lost games and bounced back, bounced back every time.
"If we go another run like we’ve just been on, we’ll be right in the mix. But I’m not going to turn around and say ‘We lost one game and everybody’s downbeat’, nothing like that whatsoever.
"The challenge is there, we’ll have a challenge again because we’re a big club. Whether we win, lose or draw we’re a big club.
"When you lose people say ‘Are you disappointed?’. But we’re top of the league, I can’t be too critical of the team they’ve been fantastic for me.
"I said a few weeks ago there’s got to be a realism. If anybody said Man City would lose to Norwich or lose to Wolves, nobody would ever think that. But that’s football. It’s how you bounce back and the good teams always bounce back.”
Accrington boss John Coleman felt his team thoroughly deserved the victory.
"I don’t think anyone could argue about the win," he said. "I thought we were the better team.
"We were on the front foot and I thought we looked as though we had more energy.
"Ipswich are a top side and they’ll go up deservedly but they had three of their key players out.
💙Thank you to the @IpswichTown fans for their support in our striker Billy Kee's battle with depression, bulimia and anxiety. Will will make sure Billy sees it. pic.twitter.com/pqKO2xRKpv– Accrington Stanley FC (@ASFCofficial) October 20, 2019
"That doesn’t detract from the fact we’ve played well but we had to against a really good side.
"Colby Bishop’s a physical presence, he held the ball up and won his headers and he has got a good return so far and, by his own admission, it could be better.
"On the sending-offs, I don’t think he has to send either player off. We’ll have to see whether we’ll appeal the red card. It makes us a bit thin on the ground defensively.”