Charlton Athletic manager Nathan Jones bemoaned his side's lapse in defence as they slipped to a 1-0 defeat against Norwich City at The Valley.
Pelle Mattsson scored the only goal for the Canaries in the opening five minutes but, despite having plenty of time to recover from the early setback, the Addicks failed to reply.
"We have to defend the goal better," Jones told BBC Radio London. "
We debrief, we tell them, we show them. That's really disappointing. Then we have enough situations in the final third to have created more than we did, but we lacked quality and composure.
"We hit the bar. We had so many situations and opportunities to cross and punish, but we don't. That's our learning curve. It's a tough league and we have to get better – whether that's more work or different personnel.
The Charlton boss also expressed his dissatisfaction with the performance of referee Will Finnie but when considering the bigger picture for Charlton in their first campaign back in the Championship, he is heartened by their progress.
He added: "There are unacceptable decisions again. Last week there was, in my opinion, a poor refereeing decision and it cost us. I have no doubt in my mind we'll get another apology for a baffling decision.
"If I do my job, and it goes to the timescales, then we're talking a few years for us to be competing and playing. We are competing with these, but on a different level resource wise.
"We're not in the worst place but we want to push boundaries. If we develop in the next two years as we have the last two years, we'll be in a different position."
