Cardiff City boss Sabri Lamouchi says his side's inability to pay attention to 'small details' was behind their dire second-half collapse at Sheffield United.
After a positive start that saw the Bluebirds take the lead in the first half through Sory Kaba's penalty, a second-half capitulation saw Sheffield United run in three goals, having already equalised through James McAtee.
Some horrible defensive errors were largely to blame for Cardiff's downfall, although Lamouchi believes the standard of his team's first-half showing was a positive for his team to build on as they continue to sweat on their Championship status.
"When you lose it's always not a good day," he said. "Of course, I'm not happy with the result. I'm not happy because probably today my players deserved something else. But we need to take care of the small details.
"Unfortunately with the small mistakes and small details against us, it is like it is.
"We started the game very well, and I can say that probably the first half was very good. We deserved probably to keep the result, because they score with their first shot and we can score the second one with Joe Ralls in that face-to-face with the keeper. So, we miss our chance to increase the score or to come back in the game.
"But given it was like that. We need to be more of a killer in the two boxes. don't give nothing. Against a good team like Sheffield it's a mistake and you pay."
Cardiff have little chance to dwell on this result. Lamouchi has to pick his team up off the floor ahead of Wednesday night's trip to Watford.
"It's game by game. We have five games to play. One more than the others. They will be five finals. But as I said to my players, if we played like we played today, we will not be unlucky all the time," Lamouchi added.
"If we take care of the small details, we can avoid the small mistakes, and we can maybe have a different result.
"The first half we don't see the difference between the players playing for promotion and the ones that want to stay in the Championship. This was the difference. But in the second half the small details were absolutely clear because they had more quality and they don't give us anything. But we deserved to come in at 2-2. That's my opinion.
"The way we started and the way we played in the first half was positive. In this way, we can probably get some points."
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