PAUL Jewell must today start deciding what to do about his side’s glaring lack of pace after it was exposed by speed-merchants Crystal Palace.

The Eagles rose to third in the Championship following their 1-0 win over Ipswich at Portman Road on Saturday – a defeat which slipped Town out of the top six.

As the Blues failed to perform for the second consecutive home game, they were at times overran by the pacy frontmen of the Palace.

But Jewell admitted his “slow” side was nothing new to him, he was aware of the potential problems even when Town embarked on an impressive six-match unbeaten run.

He expained: “It is obviously a concern for us and Crystal Palace did cause us problems. I like pacey players and we obviously don’t have a lot of them. But I was concerned five weeks ago.”

After keeping the same side for six matches, Jewell made three changes to Saturday’s team – including dropping both top scorer Michael Chopra and Jason Scotland to the bench.

But neither Nathan Ellington nor Jay Emmanuel-Thomas took their big chance in front of the largest crowd Portman Road has seen this season.

Jewell added: “We didn’t play well on Tuesday and we didn’t play well today. We just didn’t move the ball around quick enough.

“The last few games, although we are a very slow team, we have had options. But we were just playing in straight lines – it was just a bad day at the office.

“We have enjoyed the unbeaten run, but we have had a setback and I don’t know a team in the world that doesn’t have setbacks. Hopefully we can have a good week’s training and look forward to Millwall.”