IPSWICH Town manager Mick McCarthy admitted tonight’s 5-0 hammering at high-flying Crystal Palace was a ‘sobering experience’, but says it doesn’t change his thoughts on the size of the task ahead.

The Blues are now five points adrift of Championship safety at the foot-of-the-table and have a dreadful minus 20 goal difference after new Eagles boss Ian Holloway made it 11 goals in two games against the Suffolk club (Town lost 6-0 at Blackpool earlier in the season).

“It was a bit of a sobering experience, but I hadn’t come away on Saturday (a gritty 1-0 win at Birmingham) thinking it was all sweetness and light,” said McCarthy.

“I didn’t think one victory was going to turn it all around. Crystal Palace were a different proposition to Birmingham, that’s for sure. They murdered us tonight.”

With Ipswich conceding three penalties in a crazy 11 minute second-half spell – Glenn Murray netting two of them – McCarthy continued: “As usual players are all telling me ‘it wasn’t a penalty, it wasn’t a penalty, it wasn’t a penalty’. I’ll have to look at them a little bit closer to decide on that.

“Of course I’ve learnt a lot about the players. It’s been a long five days I can tell you. I didn’t come to a team with one win thinking we would suddenly become a really top team though.

“This has not changed anything. I was fully aware of the size of the task. Whether anyone thought that me coming in and having one win at Birmingham would mean we would come and outplay a Crystal Palace side I don’t know? If they did then they were a little bit misguided.

“The first goal’s a mistake, the second one’s a penalty, but however they come about we’ve got to look at it. We’ve got a fair bit of work to do.

“We could go through the catalogue in terms of how we’ve conceded. There’s a bloke who’s prevented us scoring, Damien Delaney – who left our place – and he’s then set them away to score from our corner kick.

“There’s got to be a thread running through it because we are conceding more goals than anybody else.”