Conor Chaplin says he expects Town to compete with every team in the division after the Blues narrowly fell to their first defeat of the season in a seven-goal thriller against Leeds United at Portman Road.
The Blues got off to the perfect start when Joe Rodon turned Kayden Jackson’s cross into his own net inside just seven minutes, but the Whites capitalised on some lacklustre defending to strike three times in nine minutes and turn the game on its head after a frantic opening 20 minutes.
Nathan Broadhead pulled one back in first-half stoppage time, but Luis Sinisterra’s 75th-minute goal meant it was too little too late by the time Chaplin made it 4-3 in second-half time added on.
But Chaplin argued the Blues created the better chances against a side who were playing two divisions above Town last season.
"It was a good game,” he said. "I thought generally we were the better team for large spells of the game. We probably didn’t defend moments from quality players well enough, which is disappointing because we’ve been so good at that and is probably one of our real strengths.
"A foundation that we build a lot of our play off is being solid, so it was disappointing the way we conceded the goals. I thought there was a foul on Samy [Morsy] for the fourth goal, definitely, but then we get done inside and it’s a good finish.
"But I thought we were the better team and we had the better chances. We had more chances, more shots, more territory, but they’ve come out on the good side of the margins today and that’s something we’ll be looking to put right in the next one.
"Like I alluded to earlier, we missed a few chances in the first half, we had a lot of territory and pressure. I don’t think we had loads of chances at the start of the second half, it was probably towards the back end, from memory.
"I think we had a lot of corners but I’m not sure I can remember too many chances at the start of the second half. The frustrating one is the foul on the fourth as the two-goal lead is obviously better for them.
"We were confident we were going to score again, we really were. It was just a pity it was so so late.”
The forward says Town will be judged on all of the matches they play and was keen to stress the importance of respecting every team in the division equally.
When asked if the visit of Leeds is the sort of game Town will be judged on, he said: "No, I think every game. You’d be naïve and disrespectful to say that you wouldn’t judge yourself against QPR or Cardiff. I’m saying those teams because we just played them and we’ve got to play them.
"I think every single team, whether you’re at the top end of the table or the bottom end of the table judging on last season as there’s only four games played.
"We expect to compete with every team in the league, we don’t want any pats on the back for competing with Leeds and having a good game. That means nothing to us, we expect to be competing with them teams.”
While there was obvious disappointment to not get anything from the game, Chaplin says there was no downcast mood in the dressing room.
"No, not at all,” he said. "That’s the division we’re in now, we want to be competing at the top end of this division and it’s not a surprise to us that we’ve been the better team today.
"At home we’ll be a match for absolutely anyone in this league, we truly believe that. We work so hard, we’re well coached, we expect to be on top in these games, we expect to have good chances in these games.
"It’s not ‘well done, you’ve competed with Leeds’, it’s not like that at all, we expect it from within so that’s why there’s a bit of disappointment.
"We’ve scored three goals at home, we expect to get something out of the game.”
The visitors’ goalscorers included Joël Piroe, Georginio Rutter and Sinisterra, of whom the Whites paid £10.5m, £36m and £21m respectively.
Despite the obvious strength in the Leeds attack, the Blues did not panic and felt hard done by to find themselves two goals behind in the first half.
Chaplin said: "We believe in what we do. I thought when we were 3-1 down we’d had better chances – I missed a great chance, Wes [Burns] missed a great chance, we had great moments to flash the ball across the box that they defended well, had a lot of corners.
"We believe in what we do, that’s why there’s no panic. We just kept doing what we were doing, we took a lot of confidence from the start of the game and to find yourself 3-1 down was a bit ruthless.
"But there’s millions of pounds of attacking talent on their team – it’s going to be ruthless. There’s going to be times where you need to come up against quality and come out on top and we probably didn’t do that enough defensively at times, that’s the disappointment.”
Defeat was Town’s first since early February and brought an end to the Blues’ unbeaten run of 21 matches in all competitions. It was also the first defeat at home since October last year.
Chaplin said: "The run was something that we never spoke about, just like we never spoke about trying to get promotion last season. It was never an agenda in the changing room or in discussion.
"It’s always just focusing on the process, that’s what we do all the time. You learn off the back of winning and you learn off the back of losing.
"It’s just the next game mantra and that’s probably why we did go on a good run because that was our mentality. We were humble and very hard-working and that’s put us in a good place for the last 20-odd games.”
Chaplin struck his second in as many games with virtually the final kick of the game after five minutes of added time were signalled, a decision the former Barnsley man was not pleased with.
"The only disappointment is that it was a consolation,” the 26-year-old said. "I actually thought it was confusing that we had five minutes added on at the end of the game. We’ve had ten substitutions, that’s five minutes in itself.
"There was a lot of time-wasting from them that the ref [Bobby Madley] was telling us every single time he was noting it down. There were players going down, we had a couple of players go down with injuries.
"Five minutes was frustrating, we got 13 minutes in the second half at Sunderland in the first game of the season and five minutes today, with six minutes in the first half.
"That’s really annoying personally and I can’t really get my head around it, especially when you score late on and you expect to get five or six minutes to go and get an equaliser because that’s what we should have played.
"It’s just frustrating because every single game is different and you look for certain things one game and not the next. They were time-wasting in the first half and the ref said ‘I know, I know, I know’ but [they kept doing it] until they got a booking but they didn’t so they kept doing it.”
Chaplin attempted to recall his winning goal at Queens Park Rangers last weekend and emphasised the importance of getting off the mark early on, having struck 29 times in all competitions for the Blues last season.
He said: "I’m trying to remember it now, I’ve forgotten about that already. Good away day, good three points but obviously I’ve forgotten about that quite quickly after the game.
"It’s important every season to get going and I have done now which is important. And all the forward players have so that’s a positive we can take as well.”
Town sit sixth in the early Championship standings having taken nine points from the opening four league games, a healthy position to be in ahead of the Carabao Cup tie at Reading on Tuesday.
"We’re not looking at the [international] break yet, we’ve got two games before that and it’s very important for us to bounce back,” Chaplin said.
"We’ve got Reading away on Tuesday [in the Carabao Cup] which is going to be tough, we want to progress in that competition and it’s a really good one for our squad. We want to get good games and games you can look forward to, definitely.
"And then Cardiff at home on Saturday is a game we’ll be looking to bounce back in the league, for sure.”