"They deserved it, they were better than us," admits Millington after Town lose at Southend

Goals from Henry Sandat and Gus Scott-Morriss sealed what was eventually a comfortable win for Southend and saw Town drop out of the top seven.

"I thought the best team won, they deserved it, they were better than us," Millington said.

"The one thing we know you've got to do when you come up against Southend is you've got to be able to match their intensity from the first minute to the last and we didn't.

"They finished a lot stronger than us and their intensity was the difference at the end of the day."

When asked whether 3-0 was a fair reflection of the game, Millington said: "I thought it probably was. We played well in spells but the early goal was a significant blow.

"If you're 0-0 going into the second-half - we started the second-half bright and exerted a certain amount of control at that stage - if that's 0-0 it can be a very different game, of course.

"The fact is we conceded a strange goal at the beginning, which I need to see back to know whether or not we could have done more about, and then we've got done down our right hand side on two occasions.

"Our defending hasn't looked as energetic and aggressive as it has done in previous games, we looked a little bit jaded, we looked like we were missing a couple of players.

"And the best team won, unfortunately."

Millington added: "I don't think we can get too carried away, it's the first time we feel, as a group, that we've actually deserved to be beaten this season.

"We feel like every game, even the defeats, we've been in games and we've arguably deserved something out of them or could have got something out of them.

"On this occasion, we've deserved to be beaten. We came up against a very good team who are incredibly intense in every moment of the game, there's no let up, and we're missing a lot of players who've played a lot of minutes for us.

"We've also got some lads who've played a lot of minutes who maybe looked a bit jaded today and were just quite not at the usual levels.

"We'll go through the usual processes of reviewing to make sure we're better against Solihull, but I think it can be a danger to read too much into it.

"It was a day where we were beaten by the better team."

When asked what the result says about Town's play off credentials, Millington said: "I don't really know, we've played every team in this division at least once and we've felt that we can beat all of them on our day, and that's still the case.

"Today we've got Jamie Cooke playing in an unfamiliar position against arguably the most productive left side in the division - Bridge and Fonguck are highly productive and the vast majority of Southend's goals are created down that side, as the goals were today.

"We prepared for that, we knew Bridge had eight assists coming into the game, so we know how dangerous that side of their team is, we set up to defend that side of their team and try and force it onto their right.

"Unfortunately we didn't do it successfully enough.

"Were we to have had other personnel available, maybe we'd have dealt with it better.

"There's a few lads who've played an awful lot of minutes this season and I think the fact that Milli Alli, Tylor Golden, Ryan Galvin, Max Wright are all picking up niggles and knocks at this stage and then other lads who've played a lot of minutes looked a bit jaded and slightly off the pace today, it's no coincidence that it's culminated in a performance where we've not quite been at our usual levels."

The Town boss felt his side were lacking at both ends of the pitch in the defeat.

"They had a couple of goalmouth scrambles as well as the three goals - we've not had a game like that this season where we've had to defend inside our own box quite as much," he said.

"At the other end we've created two or three chances but the keeper's only really pulled off one save, but what a save by the way.

"A lot of what went on between the two boxes was actually quite good, but when it came to the bits that really mattered when you've got to be right on your mettle, we just weren't at the races today."

On the substitution of Florent Hoti in the second-half, Millington said: "We just felt the game was drifting and he wasn't influencing it as much as he had been in the earlier stages.

"He was starting to roam and come deeper to get on the ball and drifting out onto the wrong side of the pitch and that's a sign that either a lad's tired or he's starting to play his own game so we felt we needed to get people on who were going to play to the strengths of the team rather than maybe trying to do things themselves."

Attacker Milli Alli missed the game after having a knee injury confirmed with a scan, which Millington says could keep him out for a couple of weeks.

On Tylor Golden's absence, Millington said: "He was touch and go, he had a fitness test on Friday morning and was just deemed not quite fit enough to travel."