Town boss Paul Cook felt his side played really well in their 1-0 Carabao Cup defeat to Newport with only their finishing letting them down.
The Blues had 25 shots, six on target but it was Timmy Abraham’s fourth minute goal which won the tie.
"I thought we played really well, if I’m being truthful, you just can’t miss that many chances in a football game, can you?” he said.
"I thought it was a real smash and grab from Newport, great credit to them. I think both sides had made changes.
"I felt we created a helluva lot of chances, a lot of chances. We’ve hit the woodwork a couple of times and sometimes if you don’t put your chances away, we all know what happens.”
Asked whether it was just the final finish which was lacking, he added: "That’s what’s football about. Possession doesn’t win you games, goals do and unfortunately tonight, we didn’t score the goals.
"I enjoyed us, I really did. I thought lads came into the team, Bailey Clements, Cam Humphreys, Idris, Dobs, Corrie Ndaba and we played really well.
"I thought the team shape looked very strong. I thought we had so much possession, we had so many crosses in the box and we had so many chances.
"But unfortunately, as everyone knows, if you don’t put your chances away, you don’t win games.
"I thought Louie Barry looked very exciting for his first start, again all through the team I thought we played well, but obviously everyone wants to win football games and we all understand that.”
Was composure an issue? "You all watched it, you’ll never get me criticising the players. I don’t really work like that. I think we’re a work in progress. We made 10 changes from Saturday with lads who in some cases have never even met each other.
"So if you expect us to win, I think that can always be a bit tricky. You’ve got to pay respect to the opposition, to Newport, they’re a very strong League Two team, beaten in the play-offs last year. They’ve a really good manager, who has had a stable team for a few years.
"And at times we penned them in and we carved them up, if truth be known. We just couldn’t score.”
Cook made 10 changes from the team which drew 2-2 with Morecambe at the weekend and the Blues boss admits he’s not decided on his best team.
"With players still coming in the building, Hayden Coulson and Kyle Edwards have come in, everybody knows there’s been a lot of change at the club. When there’s a lot of change it does take time unfortunately, whether people like to hear that or not,” he said.
"Integrating to the new players into the club, into the area, settling is important and obviously getting them training and playing is very important as well.”
Quizzed on how the performance differed from Saturday, he added: "I thought we played well tonight, I really did. I was really pleased with the performance. Nowadays football gets scrutinised that quickly, it’s untrue.
"I thought we played really well, someone said we had nearly 30 attempts on goal. If you have 30 attempts on goal and you don’t score, I think we have to look at our shooting boots, don’t we.”
He confirmed there will be further changes for the visit to Burton on Saturday: "I would suggest so if I made 10 for the last one. I’ll keep changing 10 every time and see where it gets me.”
Cook was asked about the performance of 17-year-old Cameron Humphreys and said he was pleased with all the youngsters who were involved.
"I thought they were all excellent, all the young lads were excellent,” he said. "We’re trying to get minutes into Sone Aluko, Scotty Fraser’s come on, [James] Norwood and Kayden [Jackson] have come on.
"We’re all playing catch-up from pre-season and as a manager you’ve got to stay very focused on your targets ahead.”
Cook said he is disappointed to go out of the competition, even if his main focus is very much the league.
"Always disappointed, you want to win games,” he said. "We’d love to play a big team under the lights at Portman Road with a big crowd, but unfortunately at the minute, the league campaign is our priority, I think everyone knows that.
"We don’t want to lose football matches, I don’t think any manager wants to lose football matches, but I couldn’t complain about the way we played tonight, I actually enjoyed watching the game.”
Norwood went off towards the end with a hamstring problem leaving the Blues with 10 men. Cook says he’s not sure of the extent of the issue.
"It’s too quick, I can’t tell you,” he said. "It’s just football, we’ll go and see now, we’ll have an assessment and we’ll see where it is.”
Toto Nsiala suffered a hamstring problem on Saturday and underwent a scan yesterday but Cook wouldn’t be drawn on the centre-half’s situation.
"Again, one of the things here, we can’t debate every player after every game. When there are injury updates, we’ll give you them,” he said.
"Tonight it’s about the lads who have played and the disappointment that we’ve gone out of the cup.”
Asked whether Nsiala’s injury means he has a concern about the centre-half position ahead of the weekend, he said: "You get injuries, don’t you? We’ll address it tomorrow, we’ll come and train tomorrow. The cycle goes on and we look towards the next game.”
Questioned on whether CEO Mark Ashton is working on any further additions, the Blues having signed 14 players already this summer, he said: "We’ll just keep going. These lads now, they’ve had interrupted pre-season, Hayden’s had Covid for 12 days, we’ve signed a centre-half in Edmundson, who is still a week or two away.
"The reality is it goes on. As manager, we just sort the game out tonight, disappointed to go out, we wish Newport well and we look forward to Saturday at Burton.”
What does he like about Kyle Edwards and Hayden Coulson, who became recruits 13 and 14 yesterday? "They’re just young, they’ve got good energy, good players, talented boys, who can handle the ball.
"We’ve seen the last two games, unfortunately tonight we couldn’t break down a Newport team, but we certainly had enough chances to.
"Teams might set up to defend like that against us and we’ve got to make sure we learn to win the game.”
Cook didn’t want to comment about the on-off transfer involving Portsmouth winger Michael Jacobs: "There’s nothing to say on Michael, I’m not looking to get involved in any controversy, we’ve had a game tonight and that’s all I want to talk about.”
Newport manager Michael Flynn was unsurprisingly delighted with his side's victory.
"It was an absolutely outstanding win,” he told his club's official website.
"I’m very, very proud of that group of players because we had a lot of young boys out there.
"They haven’t really played together as a team but I thought they dug in, road their luck at times, against a weakened Ipswich team.
"You could see the players they were bringing on so I’m over the moon because that’s a massive confidence boost for those boys.”