Frustrated Bristol City manager Liam Manning felt his game plan worked 90 per cent of his side’s 3-2 defeat to the Blues at Portman Road but was left bemoaning conceding soft goals.
Manning, a former Town academy midfielder and coach, felt that having got their noses in front twice his team, who have now lost their last four, ought to have got something from the match.
"The immediate bit is that you have to come away with something, ultimately,” he reflected.
"I thought the game plan worked in terms of frustrating them and controlling space where we wanted to, for probably 90 per cent of the game.
"We obviously did a terrific job to go ahead. I think what you then get is key bits of momentum in the game; one up, Nahki [Wells]’s chance [which hit the post], we had a couple of other half-chances which, if you go two up, I think it changes the emotional state of the lads.
"And then they then make the four changes and it shifts back. Just too emotional, I think, and that ultimately cost us in the end.”
Manning thought the game became too stretched after Town’s match-winning quadruple substitution just after the hour mark with Wes Burns, Ali Al-Hamadi, Jack Taylor and Jeremy Sarmiento all making an impression.
"Definitely,” he said. "I think that comes down to the focus side because we get too emotional and we get caught up in the game a little bit. We end up switching off and not doing what we need to.
"When you’re playing against a strong side like them with the attacking threats they’ve got, you switch off and you get punished. Ultimately that was it, we disconnected and we were just far too stretched.”
Asked about the Robins’ dressing room afterwards, the former MK Dons and Oxford manager added: "A lot of angry, annoyed, unhappy people. It’s tough, right? I thought there were so many positives and I’ve not been able to say that after the last couple of games, whereas actually the performance level tonight I thought was very good for 90 per cent of it, which I know going forward, if that’s the level we hit, we’ll win games.
"The chances we created, the goals we scored, we just have to cut out giving away soft goals.”
Regarding the positives of the display from his team’s perspective, he said: "It was slightly different [to previous approaches]. Happy to concede a bit of possession, try and control space, slightly different without the ball.
"Then I think that has a knock-on effect where spaces on the pitch, rather than them being low and us having to break it down, there was more space on the back of them.
"And that was the plan, to try and counter and I thought even at the weekend in the first half [of the 1-0 defeat at Cardiff], some of the the threats were from counter-attacks.
"It was to try and exploit that and I thought, especially in the second half, there were a couple of times when we got into really good areas.
"We had a spell where we controlled the ball in the attacking half for a little bit. I think there were so many positives to take that we’ve not been about to speak about at late.”
Regarding conceding soft goals, he added: "We have to change that, we have to have a clean sheet mentality, we have to work harder.
"And, to be fair, for so many games were outstanding at defending our box. I thought we did a terrific job of it.
"Whereas, I think it’s just minor things, just not controlling space in behind us, which is a principle we’ll always have that we have to own the depth and contest in front.
"When you look at the first goal, the set piece [for Town’s second] is frustrating, they overloaded the front and we didn’t move our line. And then just basics again on the third one from us.
"Before Wes Burns came on, I thought we did a terrific job of it. It’s all about your positional play, but with the speed those guys move at, if you switch off for half a second, it’s two or three metres.
"What you can’t do is get your body shape wrong or not scan, not check, not be aware. Especially when you knew the second that Wes Burns came on it was about trying to get in behind us and, to be fair, we didn’t deal with it.”