Town boss Kieran McKenna felt his team was at full stretch trying to compete with Arsenal at 11-v-11 with the dismissal of Leif Davis making it an impossible task to get back into the game even if his side showed some good qualities in the second half.
The Blues were 2-0 behind when Davis was shown the first red card of his senior career for a rash challenge on Bukayo Saka.
"A really tough game, two different games to a certain extent,” McKenna said. "Tough at 11-v-11. Arsenal started really well, I probably felt at the start of the game maybe the highest standard that we’ve faced this year, to be honest.
"The group was absolutely at full stretch trying to compete in the first 20 or 30 minutes. We had a few moments where we could have hurt the opposition but in the end their execution was better than ours and their quality shone through in the goals and they were the better team and deserved their lead at that point.
"Of course, then the red card makes it almost an impossible task in terms of getting back into the game and I thought the group showed good qualities with 10 men, to be honest.
"The second half’s a really tough situation, I thought we managed it well. Defensive organisation, spirit, resilience was really good, didn’t give up too many things in free play.
"We knew if we did that we’d get one or two moments around their box. We had a similar situation in the Aston Villa game earlier in the season [when also down to 10 men] and we actually had a couple of little moments. You need it to go in the net really to have a chance in the game, but it didn’t.
"Just disappointed with a couple of short corners, which were difficult to deal with. They’re good on short corners and when you lose a man that’s a moment where it becomes really difficult because without giving up too much in the box, it’s hard to match up the numbers they have in the short [areas] even with 11-v-11.
"Disappointed that a couple of short corners ended up going in the net but I thought in the second half the group showed the right qualities that they needed to show in that instance.”
On the red card, McKenna added: "At the time I didn’t think it was but it was on the far side of the pitch and that’s more in line with knowing Leif as a player and I don’t think he’s got a malicious bone, really, so I don’t think there will have been the intent to injure.
"But when you see it on the video, it’s obviously a high challenge, and I’m pretty certain with no intent, but it’s a high challenge, so I can see why the referee gave it and when it’s given, it’s never going to be overruled, so we can’t have too many complaints.”
The defeat was Town’s seventh in a row at home, a new club record, and their 20th out of their 33 games in the Premier League this season.
McKenna was asked whether he was disappointed with that figure, even if perhaps it isn’t a fair reflection of the number of games in which they have been in contention over the course of the campaign.
"We could have more points at this stage,” he reflected. "The games that we’ve managed to be tight, we haven’t come out on top of the margins enough.
"There’s also then a category of games like today, maybe Man City, Newcastle, where the game just gets away, the opponent’s just too good, too strong.
"The challenge has been big, but we’ve picked up 13 results, you can look at it in another way, we’ve picked up 13 results. Of the teams that we’ve faced twice, it’s Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Forest, it’s a pretty small category of teams we haven’t taken something off.
"So we’re competing against some top teams in the top league in the world, we know how big the climb’s been. I think we’ve competed well lots of weeks, not every week, but we’ve competed well most weeks, which is how we’ve managed to take points off those teams, but we haven’t won enough games.
"When we’ve put ourselves in the position to win games, we haven’t managed to get enough games over the line, or take the margins enough whenever we’ve managed to make games really tight and competitive to have the points total that we’d want to have.”
Despite the heavy defeat and confirmation of relegation almost certain to come next week at Newcastle, McKenna and his team were given a warm reception by their fans after the whistle.
"It’s a massive testament to the supporters,” McKenna said. "Of course, mixed emotions because you’re so honoured and humbled by it but also you’re disappointed because you’d have liked to have given them a different outcome to the game.
"But I think we’ve got a fantastic supporter base and I think they understand better than anyone the scale of the challenge.
"There are some there, the older generation, who have seen 22 years without Premier League football and they’ve seen the jump that it’s been for the club and for so many of the players who have been on that journey, and then also players who have come into this team, into this group, but very, very few who have competed at Premier League level if ever before.
"They know that it’s been a massive jump, I think they see that the group’s working really hard and everyone’s giving everything and that’s been reflected in a lot of the performances. And that’s been shown even in moments like today where the result’s gone but the group are still working and fighting and the body language is good.
"And I think there’s not to much else that the players can give from that. Of course, we’d like to have made one or two fewer mistakes over the course of the season and been more clinical in one or two more moments, but they know that the group’s given everything and is continuing to do so.
"It’s fantastic that they’re behind it. I think they also know and believe that the club’s in a much, much, much better position now than it was a few years ago, that whatever division we’ll be in, and it looks like we know what division we’ll be in, the club’s much stronger going into that.
"And that if we keep doing the right things, if we keep showing the right values, keep working in the right way, then there’s a great chance that we can use this setback as another thing to push us forward because things aren’t always linear, things aren’t always on an upward trajectory.
"Of course, we would have loved to have gone promotion, promotion, establish. The first bit of that journey’s been incredible but it looks like we’re not going to be able to do the third bit.
"But there are other ways to keep developing and building this club back to being, hopefully, a Premier League football club and the supporters are going to have a massive part to play in that, and they’re certainly playing their part at the moment.”