Boss Kieran McKenna felt the Blues gave themselves an all but impossible task after conceding twice within two minutes just before half-time at Portsmouth, the home side in the end comfortably holding on to win 2-0.

Inevitably, McKenna focused on the spell just prior to the break in which Pompey netted through Conor Shaughnessy on 42 and then Colby Bishop in the 44th minute.

“I think the big moments of the game, of course, were the spell just before half-time,” McKenna said. “You concede the first goal here from a set play at this stadium with the atmosphere as it was tonight, it’s always going to be really tough, and to do it just before half-time was a blow, so we’re really disappointed with that goal.

“And then to concede probably a minute later if you take the celebrations out of it, that killed the game for us, and that’s really the key couple of minutes in the game.

“Before that, we would have liked to have played a bit better in terms of creating chances but it was always going to be a tough night.

“If we got to half-time at 0-0, it would have been a pretty steady first half and we would have been in a position to push on.

“But you let the game go in a couple of minutes before half-time and a really difficult game becomes, not impossible, but much, much, much more challenging and you would have to do fantastically well in that second half to turn it around, and we didn’t manage to do that.”

Town have come behind to win - at home to Birmingham on Easter Monday - and to lead after being two goals down at the break away from home - at Stoke before the Potters levelled via a last-gasp controversial penalty - and McKenna was asked why his side wasn’t able to drag themselves back into tonight’s game in a similar manner.

“You can’t bank on doing that too often,” he reflected. “We did it at Stoke, but certainly away from home you can’t bank on [doing] that if you go 2-0 down at half-time, you give away the two goals as we did against a team with big motivation of their own, a big crowd behind them, then the second half’s going to be really tough.

“We tried to get lots of attackers on the pitch and pushing in the second half, you need to get that first goal, be efficient. We got in some good areas but we weren’t efficient enough to create or take a big chance.

“And when you don’t get that first goal, their momentum stays really high, their energy stays really high, they defended well and we didn’t do enough to threaten them until probably the last few moments.”

McKenna was asked whether Saturday’s big derby victory over Norwich had an impact, whether the emotions from that game had an effect on tonight’s display.

“Any time you’ve Saturday away and Tuesday away in the Championship is tough,” the Blues boss continued. “When you have a derby match it’s also tough and if you come here on a Tuesday night, it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, it’s going to be tough here coming here at the end of the season when they’re fighting for everything.

“And they’re good in games like this when they’re against the top teams, it’s not a coincidence that they’ve beaten teams around us this year as well.

“It was always going to be a tough game and we were going to have to put in a tough performance to win it and we didn’t deliver a top performance, we didn’t do enough.

“It’s also important to keep perspective because it’s not like you come out of Saturday and say everything was perfect and fantastic and tonight everything’s a disaster.

“Especially at this stage of the season, the margins are really fine and if you go away from home and get a set-play goal early in the game, you give yourself a great chance.

“You come away from home on a night like tonight and concede a set-play goal on 42 minutes, you’ve probably ruined your work in the first half, and certainly when you double that up with another goal.

“The margins are fine at this stage of the season and they didn’t go for us tonight but we didn’t do well enough for them to go for us tonight and we’ll have to take that on the chin and then we get ready and look forward to the next game.”

The defeat ended a nine-game run without a defeat which has seen the Blues into pole position for automatic promotion.

Town next have a big top-of-the-table Sunday showdown against Middlesbrough, who have dropped to fifth following Southampton’s 3-0 home victory over Blackburn, but still three points behind the Blues, who now have one game in hand on the Teessiders.

“Of course, you just want the next game to come,” McKenna said. “It’s good to have an extra day of recovery than we have had for the last one or two, and it’s a big game, there’s lots to look forward to.

“We know we’re in a really strong position, we’ve got big games ahead, they’re all going to be really tough, it’s going to take a big effort to win any of them, but we’re capable of doing it, so we can look forward to Sunday now, get ready for that and it should be a really good game.”

And McKenna was keen to point out that one poor result shouldn’t detract from what remains a strong position.

“Of course it is,” he said. “We looked at this as a batch of eight games at the end of the season in 27 days. As much as it would have been lovely to go and win them all, it was probably going to be unlikely and there were always going to be bumps along the way.

“This is certainly a step back and a bump on the road. But it’s always about your reaction and how you get ready for the next game, that’s what we’re focusing on doing now.”

Quizzed on midfielder Azor Matusiwa’s fitness, the Dutchman having been substituted in the second half having come off in the Birmingham match with a knock which McKenna says continues to hamper him.

“He’s got a dead leg lingering around,” he said. “He’s okay to play, but sometimes they can take a little bit to clear completely.

“He’s a really important player for us, he got some minutes in tonight and hopefully he’ll be ready for Sunday.”

Town were without Leif Davis as the full-back’s partner had given birth to their first child.

“Really happy for him,” McKenna said. “We’ll hopefully catch up with him now over the next 24 hours and look forward to congratulating him in person and getting him back in with the group.”

Photo: TWTD