Lincoln City manager Michael Appleton hailed Town as “comfortably the best side in this division by a distance” on the evidence of last night’s game in which his team were beaten 2-0 at Portman Road.
First-half goals from Wes Burns and Kayden Jackson saw the Blues to the win which moved them to within three points of the play-offs.
"I think we just got beat by a really good team, and that’s a fact,” Appleton told LincolnshireLive.
"We played good side who are in a good moment. You can see why they’d only conceded one in seven going into the game. You can see why they’ve scored goals.
"For me, they’re comfortably the best side in this division by a distance, judging on what I’ve seen tonight.
"We’ve got some big games coming up against the likes of Rotherham and Sunderland, and they won’t cause us the amount of problems that this side did.
"Fair play to them, sometimes you’ve got to hold your hands up and admit you’ve come up against a good side who are in a better place than us at this moment in time.”
Appleton swapped forward Liam Cullen with former Colchester left-back Cohen Bramall at half-time allowing Morgan Whittaker, who had been given a torrid time by Burns in the first half, to move into midfield. pushed further forward having started the game at left wing-back.
The former Oxford and Blackburn boss admitted he made the switch as he was concerned about falling to a heavy defeat.
"That’s why we did what we did at half-time,” he continued. "It was important that we didn’t come away losing [by] four, five or six. That’s why we brought Cohen on, to try and contain the threat they had with Wes Burns.
"Having said that, we had moments before they scored but we didn’t get our shots off earlier enough, we didn’t back ourselves enough in those moments. When you don’t do that, you’re going to get punished.”
Quizzed on whether he was disappointed by the lack of chances his team created, Appleton added: "No, and that’s not me trying to be devil’s advocate. Sometimes you’ve just got to go ‘You know what, there’s a reason why they’ve spent more than anyone else in this league’ — and it shows on the pitch with the quality they’ve got.”