Dean Smith felt his Norwich City side’s game management cost them in their 3-0 defeat at Crystal Palace.
City have been decimated with injuries and illness and the City head coach handed a senior debut to Under-23s forward Jonathan Rowe in the second-half.
“Unfortunately, it’s not a healthy squad at the moment,” Dean said after the game. “That is being shown with the last three results.
“Dimi (Giannoulis) got injured (in the first-half) and couldn’t carry on. That’s another one injured. I won’t know if anyone will be back for Leicester. I’ll have to round it all up.
"Todd (Cantwell) Max (Aarons) and Teemu (Pukki) all pulled out yesterday, but it’s the same for Palace. We both had places on the bench and two goalkeepers. Unfortunately, if that’s the spectacle the Premier League want, I don’t think that is right at the moment.
“We’re an honest group, and they kept going. We just found it too tough.”
City were beaten by three first-half goals at Selhurst Park. Odsonne Edouard’s early penalty got the ball rolling and a quickfire double close to half-time from Jean-Philippe Mateta and Jeffery Schlupp put the game beyond doubt.
“Sometimes if you look at a scoreline as it is, it looks like a real terrible performance," Dean added.
“With the team we had out there, we competed quite well. Physically, they were better than us, they probably won the majority of the duels. That’s what it comes down to at the end of the day.
“The manner of the goals is what disappoints me more than anything. We’ve created more chances here today than we have in a lot of the other games we have played.
“Their keeper has made some good saves and we didn’t take others. Unfortunately, the game was lost in the 38th and the 42nd minutes when they scored two goals that, in previous games, teams have found them tough to score against us.
“We’ve defended our box really well in the first two or three games after I came in. Unfortunately, we’ve lost ten senior players or whatever it is at the moment. It was a young group today and the game management of the opposition was better than ours.”
Asked about how he will pick himself and team up from the defeat, Dean said: “I’ll pick myself up first and have a five hour dog walk to do that! We’ll come in and try and recharge the players and get ready for Leicester who are also decimated with injuries and illness as well.
“It’s a position I don’t feel we should be in at the moment. We shouldn’t have played against Villa and we shouldn’t be playing today, 48 hours after the last game, especially at this current time.
“We didn’t have a lot of choice in the team or the subs. We’ve got players who can’t really go and play two games in two days. It was a huge risk with Sam Byram playing a full 90 minutes, but it was the right time to put Jon (Rowe) on.
“We didn’t have an awful lot to lose, I think he’s a good player. He’s got a future certainly at this club and in the game. Would I want to be putting him in, 3-0 down away to Palace for his debut? No. It’s too tough for the kid, but that’s where we are at the moment. That’s what injury and illness has left us with. No disrespect to Jon, he’ll be a top player.”