Roy Keane said the defeat against Palace was a reality check for Town, with a lot of hard work ahead.

Two goals from Darren Ambrose and a header from Neil Danns gave Palace the points with Alex Bruce on target for Blues.

"There has been a lot of expectation around the place, particularly in the summer and it's been a reality check for us all," Roy told the Club website.

"The players are aware that there is a lot of hard work in front of them and that applies to all of us. We are under no illusions and we have to take our medicine again today and move on. But hopefully there is not too much medicine to come.

"We had our chances and Owen and Jon Stead contributed to that in the second-half but we conceded three goals and two of them were bad goals to concede.

"We didn't really get going early in the second-half and we were still recovering from the first goal when they scored the second so it was always going to be hard to get something out of the game after that.

"We expressed ourselves better in the last half hour and we have to do that when we go to West Brom at the weekend."