Town boss Paul Cook admitted his side’s consistency is their inconsistency after they followed up Tuesday’s brilliant 4-1 win at Wycombe with a lacklustre 1-1 FA Cup draw with League strugglers Oldham Athletic at Portman Road.
Asked what he made of the match, Cook told the media afterwards: "Probably the same as you. I think you’ve probably already written your paper, your scripts and everything else.
"I picked the same team that four nights ago probably had a standing ovation from an ecstatic support and I’ve watched the exact same players today, play like that.
"Sometimes as a manager you just look a the floor and shake your head. Because our inconsistency is our consistency.
"We didn’t respect the game today, we didn’t show an appetite to win a football game, we didn’t have the hunger that good teams have to turn up and you’ll probably see that throughout the football calendar today. I would imagine there will be a lot of similar results around.
"But Oldham were good value for a draw today, we didn’t create enough chances. You can just write a book on what we did wrong. Like I said to the players, we have to go to Oldham on a Tuesday night now and put it right, and that’s something that we’re going to have to do.”
Does that inconsistency leave him scratching his head? "No, because that’s our team. At the minute that’s what we’ve put together. As a manager, sometimes you’re quite cool and comfortable when you actually know what players will do.
"So for me as a manager, going forward as a club, we want a lot more consistency from our players, we want a lot more where we turn up and we know what we’re going to get.
"Even it was a difficult day for today, which it was, we should have found a way to win, so we could have all gone home tonight saying that we weren’t quite at it, we were disappointing but we’re in the next round.
"Unfortunately for us, we relied a great save from Christian Walton from the penalty to still be in the hat.”
Quizzed on what the penalty, which Walton saved from Dylan Bahamboula, was awarded for, Cook said: "You’ve got to be careful. I’m not criticising referees but if you start giving them for bits of pulling, then the reality is you’d be giving a lot of penalties in games.
"As I say, Oldham did deserve a draw, credit to [Latics manager] Keith [Curle] and his staff and the players. For us, off the back of a great performance on Tuesday night, that was a really disappointing one, but at least we didn’t get beat.”
Having got off to a great start when Wes Burns gave them the lead in the eighth minute, Cook was asked whether there was some complacency from his players.
"We’ve had perfect starts, we took the lead against West Ham’s U21s here, against Newport we kicked in,” he recalled.
"We’ve had many games where we’ve sat there and, same as you, we’ve been thinking ‘Here we go’. Today was absolutely no different.
"So we’ve got to just keep working at it, they’ve got to eradicate mistakes, ill-discipline sometimes with free-kicks still stands out, but most importantly, if you’re a good player, you have to have a mentality that every time you cross a line on a pitch, you give a percentage of a performance.
"Today our percentages of performance were way down, and that’s something that myself, the staff, we’ll all take on board. We all win together, draw together and unfortunately lose together, and that’s what we’ll do.”
Does the inconsistency concern him? "How can it worry me going forward? No, because I think, as I’ve said to you guys quite regularly, the opposition is quite irrelevant to how we play at the minute, it’s about us.
"I would imagine, hopefully, the bigger the game, the bigger the occasion, I would imagine, probably the bigger the performance, but let’s watch this space.”
Cook had said before the game that he wanted a cup run and his side, featuring one injury-enforced change from Tuesday, illustrated that.
"I said to the fans coming off, you’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t, aren’t you?” he reflected.
"That on paper was our strongest team, especially after Tuesday night’s performance where to a man everyone got all the plaudits they deserved. Yet today we just looked a shadow of that team.”
Town now face a replay at Boundary Park, probably played a week on Tuesday, a trip to the North-West which will be unwelcome a few days prior to the Blues’ game at Sunderland.
"I’ve got family in the North-West, I’m absolutely delighted with the players for playing like that and getting me back there!” Cook joked.
"No, the games come thick and fast, we’ve got a big enough squad to manage every situation. The disappointing thing today is for our supporters, we all wanted to get through. I think the team reflected that and we all leave the stadium tonight probably a little bit disappointed and rightly so.”"
Had Cook made the 10 or 11 changes that fans have become used to in cup competitions then he would have been on the end of significant flak.
"That’s football today, and as a manager you are as good as your players,” he continued.
"At the minute we are a very inconsistent team, that’s the truth, who show really good signs at times of coming through that inconsistency and being a little bit more consistent but today was a really flat, lacklustre performance from a team who just didn’t turn up.
"And once you don’t turn up, you find it very hard to change from the gear you’re in to go into another one.
"Now we’ve got to go up to Oldham on a Tuesday, which will be a very difficult game. It’s a great opportunity for Oldham, I thought their supporters were terrific today and I thought the team was terrific. So good luck to them, we lick our wounds as we do and we go away.”
Cook confirmed that it will be a very different Town side which faces Colchester in the Papa John’s Trophy on Tuesday evening.
"The team will change on Tuesday,” he continued. "We’ve got a lot of players that want to play and that will be reflected in that team selection.
"I think the fans who pay good money to come in, I think they can be quite comfortable knowing that that’s the situation, so if they want to pay their money, that’s what will be turned out.”
Oldham head coach Keith Curle felt all his team played a part in their display.
"Before the game I gave the players a maths equation, that if 10 outfield players give one per cent extra we'll end up with 10 per cent extra,” he said.
"Everyone's got to play their part in giving that little bit extra and giving us that advantage, and I thought we did that. I thought we were brave, I thought the players understood the gameplan and I thought we executed it very well.
"One slight disappointment is I think we had a few opportunities where we could have hurt them a little bit more with the ball entering the final third and got a little bit too excited when we had an opportunity. It could have been a different scoreline.
"We're respectful, we know we're playing against a very good football team.”