Town boss Kieran McKenna says there had been a mixture of frustration and determination to put in a better performance on Saturday against West Brom following the shock 3-0 home defeat to Charlton on Tuesday.
McKenna was asked what the mood has been like around the training ground since the loss to the Addicks, the Blues’ biggest Championship home loss since Aston Villa won 4-0 at Portman Road in April 2018.
"I think probably where you'd expect it to be, where you'd want it to be - if everyone was skipping around the building, really, really happy after the other night, we'd be concerned,” he said.
"Everyone's really frustrated, players and staff, with how the night went. But then it's about how you address it and we've had a couple of good meetings about it, looked at it openly and honestly.
"The bits of the game that we did well, because there were, but probably more importantly the bits of the game that we didn't, and the spell of the game that we didn't, and we've addressed it. And we'll try and come out stronger for going through that as a group.
"And when we have further setbacks in the season, for sure they'll be there, we’ll try to use that as a reference that hopefully we'll be stronger for.
"So, a mixture of frustration, but a real determination really, to go into this weekend and show a better side of ourselves. Hopefully, that'll follow up with the result.”
Individual meetings as well as with the group? "Of course, you always follow up group meetings with individual meetings, or sometimes you have individual meetings before the group meeting.
"It's a balance of both. There are group things that we needed to do better the other night, that we needed to do better in the last two games, that we needed to address.
"But everyone's perspective on a situation would be different. One player might struggle in a certain situation for one reason, for another player it might be a completely different reason. So you also have to work with the individuals in that.
"I believe we've got a really good group. I see how hard the boys are working, how much they care.
"That didn't come out in the second half the other day, but I've got real belief in how they are as people and the players that we have.
"So, of course, we've spoken individually and as a group, and everyone's ready to push on.
"We know the reality is that this time last week we were looking forward to a game off the back of good form, a big result, the best record in the league over the last four games or so before that.
"And then we've had two bad ones in a row. It's a long season, you’re going to have a bad night or two bad nights, but we need to address it as quickly as we can. And again, try to show the best version of ourselves tomorrow.”
Asked how the last week or so, going from the glory of a derby victory to back-to-back defeats, impacts him, McKenna added: "That's normal. That's the job. It's not my first rodeo on that, either at this club or at previous clubs.
"Of course, you enjoy everything, the sun shines a little bit brighter whenever you win your games and when you don't win your games, it's a little bit more cloudy. But I've been a coach now for a long time and a manager for a good amount of games as well.
"I think it’s one area that I'm pretty good at, to be honest, staying balanced, staying on an even keel of how we keep the atmosphere here, of how we treat people, managing to separate it from other parts of your life as best as possible.
"You can only control what comes next. And that's your response. That's how hard you work and how you battle for the next training session, for the next game.
"That's pretty well ingrained in me now. So I'd like to think I deal with the bad days as well as possible.”
Asked whether it’s possible to take experiences such as Tuesday’s and turn them into a positive going forward, McKenna said: "That’s the challenge, and that's what we'll try to do.
"We know the reality is that both games, Friday night and Tuesday night, could have taken a very different course. We could have won both games and be sitting here six points higher, wherever that put us in the league, and the perspective would be really different.
"That's not fanciful thinking. Of course, you can win any game, that’s really real instances that I think led to us potentially winning games.
"We could be in a really different spot, but over the course of a Championship season you're going to have difficult moments, you're going to have a difficult night, you're going to have a difficult run of games.
"It's about how you come through these, how you react to them on the pitch and in the time between going towards your next games.
"We know the start of the season was tricky for a lot of different circumstances, but probably quite a few of the players weren't even here at the start of the season.
"Since the first international break and the group coming together, it's been pretty smooth in terms of results. Generally good and performances were getting better, and then we've had a really poor two results.
"For us, having that is not an opportunity that we've wanted, but the opportunity to really speak about how we need to be in adversity, how we need to react when things go against us, and how we need to come together as a team in the difficult moments. We've had that over the last few days, and we've spoken about it.
"Hopefully, those messages have been internalised and I think they have been, and the players all shared in agreement of what we didn't do well enough in both games when it got difficult.
"Hopefully, we can use that now going forward because, for one, there's definitely going to be more difficult moments in games. The games are going to be tight, we're going to go behind in games, and we're going to have things go against us.
"We probably haven't lost our last game this season, so how we go about our business, how we stick together as a team in those moments, is going to be really important. That's going to come up again.
"And also, I think knowing that you can stick together really, really well in difficult moments helps your confidence in general because you feel like you know your team is there.
"If you're on a good day or a bad day, you know that going into the game, where things go to plan or things go against plan, that you're really, really going to be there as a team right away through the game.
"Hopefully, at home your supporters are with you, away from home you have to do it even more so as a group and with the away supporters.
"Going through that experience, if we can come out of it stronger, if we can come out of it with the performance that we need this weekend and when we win our next game, and hopefully it's tomorrow, if we can come out of that stronger then there are lots and lots of games left in the season.
"There's lots of ups and downs and hopefully going through this sort of negative couple of games in quick succession can be something that strengthens us.”