Nigel Pearson offered no excuses for his Leicester City side's first home defeat of the season at the hands of Crystal Palace.
The City boss said his side could have been awarded two penalties as they tried to hit back from a two-goal deficit in the second half.
Pearson called for referee Andy Haines' performance to be examined, but he said that should not detract from the fact that too many of his side were off form and that Palace deserved their victory.
"I think they deserved to win," said Pearson. "They are a good outfit, very well organised with some good attacking players.
"Unfortunately, we had a few too many players who were off form.
"You will have days where, with some teams, you could say the players downed tools. You can't say that about our lot (against Palace).
"We huffed and puffed right the way through and didn't play with too much quality.
"We just had too many players below par. When you concede two goals in the space of five or six minutes, it changes the complexion markedly.
"We didn't really have enough quality to change things."
Although he said he had no complaints about Palace's goals, despite goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel's protests that he was fouled for the first one, Pearson did say City should have had a clear penalty when Owen Garvan appeared to handle David Nugent's header on the line.
"I have seen the goals again and, with the first one, it is a good take but he hit one of our own players. There is not a lot we can do about that.
"The second one, we have to do better in terms of marking. But I don't have any contentious issues with their goals."
Pearson added: "I don't think there is any question he (Garvan) moved his arm to the ball. Let's make no bones about this, I can't make those decisions, it is the job of the people who are officiating to get those decisions right.
"I am not going to make a big thing about decisions because my team has not played as well as it should have done.
"But what I will say is that there were two penalties we should have had, and they could argue they should have had one as well."
