Portsmouth head coach John Mousinho felt his side waited for Town to go two goals in front before starting to play during their 2-1 loss at Portman Road.
The Blues were two in front by half-time through Jaden Philogene and George Hirst with Pompey more in the game in the second period, although the result never looked in doubt. Marlon Pack’s injury-time header - only Portsmouth’s fifth league goal this season - came too late to be the platform for a comeback.
"We are disappointed with the result obviously,” Mousinho said. "Contrasting the two halves, we took too long to get going and it took us to go a goal down to settle into the game and after that there wasn’t a huge amount in it.
"The second goal is really disappointing the big takeaway is that we waited to go two goals down to actually play and to actually show that we are not a bad side at all. I thought the second half we were a lot better and much improved.
"You come away from a place like this a fantastic side we were playing against and it’s a little bit of frustration and disappointing that we did not come away with at least a point.
"I was impressed with the second half performance, particularly when we made the changes. If we had shown a little bit of that in the first half, but we just gave ourselves too much to do.”
He added: "But the fact we’re frustrated to lose against a side that have come down from the Premier League and have spent more on one of their substitutes than we have on our whole squad – which they’ve earned the right to do – shows we’re getting there.
"It’s been a big improvement from where we found ourselves at this stage last year and now need to take the next step.”