Huddersfield Town manager Chris Powell said his side were punished during their 1-0 home defeat to Birmingham City, a match he felt ought to have finished all square.
The Terriers fell to their second defeat in successive league games against Gary Rowett's side, who secured all three points thanks to a David Cotterill second-half free-kick.
Mistakes from Conor Coady, Jack Robinson and then Anthony Gerrard for a foul on Clayton Donaldson had gifted the Blues a shooting opportunity which Cotterill gleefully accepted, leaving Powell a frustrated man.
"Their goal was really of our own doing, because we played square instead of forward," he said.
"That put us on the back foot, we commit the foul and then (David) Cotterill pops up with a wonder-goal. We’ve been punished and it’s happening quite a bit.
"Conor (Coady) shouldn’t have played the cross-field ball, but he’s a good young player that I have a lot of time for and I believe will have a good career.
"Jack Robinson naturally wants to keep the ball in, but if he’d left it we could have got back in shape and defend whatever Birmingham do from the throw-in.
"You could also say he was too wide; if he’d been narrower, he could have received the ball on the ground.
"You could keep going on and on, but the incident has happened and we didn’t deal with it in the right way; the pass, the header or the one-on-one defending.
"Whether it was clever play from (Clayton) Donaldson to run into Anthony Gerrard or not, who knows."
In a game of few chances at either end, Powell conceded that the first goal was always likely to win such a tightly-fought clash and could not hide his disappointment at seeing a seven-match unbeaten run at home come to an end.
"It was a game and a day that should have ended 0-0," he claimed.
"The teams were quite evenly matched; there wasn’t much going on compared to a lot of the home games we’ve had recently.
"It was one of those days when you take the 0-0 from an ugly game and move on, or one moment of quality would separate the two teams. Unfortunately it came from them instead of us."
Powell wanted a reaction from his side after their 5-0 thrashing at Norwich City last week, but admitted his cautious team selection was due to being wary over a similar scenario.
"Obviously we needed a response from last week, but also needed to make sure we weren’t too open – we didn’t want a repeat of Saturday," he revealed.
"I thought we started off in decent fettle and you’re looking for Grant Holt to take the chance he had in the six yard area; it was a decent save, but I’m greedy and I want us to score those to get a real foothold in the game.
"It didn’t go in and there was a lot of huff and puff as the two teams cancelled each other out. They did a bit of a job on Harry Bunn and Sean Scannell, who have been livewires for us.
"They started a bit stronger in the second-half, but we slowly got ourselves back in it. We still created the better chances; Joe Lolley worked the keeper when he came on and I think we missed an open goal in a melee.
"It wasn’t a great day’s football, but at worst we should have come away with a 0-0 to move onto Boxing Day with."
