Charlton boss Dean Holden believes Town are the best team in the division “by a mile” and admitted there was a gulf between the teams during his side’s 6-0 walloping at Portman Road.
Conor Chaplin hit a hat-trick, Freddie Ladapo a brace and Leif Davis the sixth as the Blues ran rampant and recorded their biggest win of the Kieran McKenna era.
"It’s a humbling experience,” he conceded. "We didn’t start the game in the correct manner, we’ve conceded three corners in the first couple of minutes, we’ve conceded two goals, we were 2-0 down after 15 minutes, I think it was.
"We then had that big chance with Macauley Bonne’s header. If we take that, who knows? But from that moment onwards, we struggled to get to grips with them.
"They overran us in midfield, we were jumping out of our positions and getting played around and we didn’t lay a glove on them, really. We have to accept that.
"It’s a really poor afternoon for us. Lucky for us, there’s a game in three games time [at the MK Dons] and we have to respond to that.
"We were on the different end of a 6-0 result a couple of weeks ago against Shrewsbury ourselves.
"We have to take it on the chin, I’ve said that to the players. We have to own it. We don’t start finger pointing and blaming. We have to look within. I’ll certainly be doing that. I do that after every game, win, lose or draw. And get back to hard work. That’s all that we can do.
"We were getting pulled apart. They’re the best team in the division by a mile. They’ve hit top form today. We’ve underperformed and that can happen.”
He added: "There was a huge gulf between the teams today. There’s no doubt about that.
"Right throughout the team, from back to front, they’ve got really good players. Players that have played in this division and higher and know what it takes to win. It shows how far the gap is from where we want to get to and where we will get to.”
Holden felt his team, who ended the match with 10 men following Ryan Inniss's fourth red card of the season, made too many errors.
"Individual decision-making in the heat of the moment,” he continued.
"[George] Hirst gave us problems in that first half with his movement. He comes short, he spins and get hold of the ball.
"Chaplin was playing off him in those little pockets. Individual decision-making. We gave the ball away too many times in our own half. We’ve not been doing that recently.
"We were on the end of a thumping. There’s no way of dressing it up. It’s not pretty stood in the technical area watching it and it’s not pretty being involved as a player.
"For our supporters, it’s a really poor day. We have to show up at MK Dons in three days' time and show that we’ve learned from it.
"As much as you can in three days. More than that, show some pride and what it means to play for this shirt. There’s four games left in this season. Four big games for every single player.”