ROY Keane has accused his players of being guilty of playing “naive football” at times this season.

ROY Keane has accused his players of being guilty of playing “naive football” at times this season.

And the Ipswich Town boss also confirmed that his side’s continued failure to take their chances has been no surprise to him - the Irishman watches all the shots and headers fly high and wide each day on the training ground!

“Forest’s first goal was a bit lucky with the deflection, but at least the shot was on target,” insisted Keane.

“We’ve had boys putting balls over the bar, but don’t worry - you should come and watch us in training!

“I’m not sitting there scratching my head saying - “I don’t believe it” - No, we do it every day in training. We lose a lot of balls at our training ground. We do! It cost us a lot of money, �70 each for a replacement,” added Keane dryly.

While Keane was frustrated by his own team’s shortcomings, especially in front of goal and the way they reacted to going a goal down, he was very impressed with his old club Forest.

“You can see why Forest are where they are (third spot); They have good attacking options,” explained Keane.

“I think 3-0 was a bit harsh, but that’s the reality of football.

“I’ve been saying all season that we do get chances, and don’t think its going to change over the next few weeks.

“We don’t take them; we don’t score enough goals.

“The first goal was always going to be absolutely vital today. I’m not sure about the decision (free-kick) that led to the first goal. The deflection didn’t help either.

“But I was disappointed with our response after that. We played naive football and they picked us off, as you’d expect with their home record.

“Sometimes you need more confirmation of where we are, or the supporters do, and we saw where we are at today. We’re well short.

“There was no one out there to say - “listen, calm down.” I thought we reacted poorly in terms of just shutting up shop for five or 10 minutes. We got a bit carried away.

“We’ve done it before. We’ve gone a goal behind and then got a bit carried away. That’s when you need one or two experienced characters on the pitch, and we don’t have that as a team. You saw that today.

“I’m not sitting here feeling overly disappointed. I’m always disappointed to lose football matches, but I know where the team and the club are at.

“We’ll most definitely have to bolster the squad this summer. Even a blind man can see that. Any suggestions?” asked Keane.

The Town boss gave a frosty response to one question asked by a Forest journalist - did he consider this season to have been a failure?

Keane replied: “I think that’s a pretty poor question to ask!

“If you think I’m happy with 13th in the table you don’t know me, do you? It makes it an even worse question if you know me. Of course we’re disappointed.

“Clubs have to go through disappointing spells.

“I’m sure Forest were not happy with their position (19th) last season. We want to make sure we come back stronger, like Forest did.

“In fact, Forest are a good example. They’ve invested wisely in good young hungry players, and they are a big goal threat.”

The Town boss also confirmed that centre-half Damien Delaney is set to miss the last three games of the season, after damaging ankle ligaments early in the second half at the City Ground.

“Damien’s injury looked a sore one, It’s certainly ligament damage. It looks like he’ll be out for the rest of the season. His injury threw us a little bit,” concluded Kea